Talaye sorkh 2003

Moira MacDonald, Seattle Times: An eloquent look at a man made less human by the world around him. Read more

Michael Wilmington, Chicago Tribune: A stark, minimalist near-masterpiece. Read more

Arizona Republic: Read more

Wesley Morris, Boston Globe: The year's first great movie. Read more

Manohla Dargis, Los Angeles Times: This tough, bristling story about a working-class man pushed over the edge vividly brings to mind the great Hollywood social dramas of the 1930s. Read more

Jonathan Rosenbaum, Chicago Reader: It's the singular presence of Hussein Emadeddin -- a nonprofessional like all the other actors Panahi has used in his films -- that gives the film much of its soul and mystery. Read more

Vic Vogler, Denver Post: The movie can feel slow and tedious, but the supper it makes us work for is nourishing. Read more

Owen Gleiberman, Entertainment Weekly: A fable of money as the root of jealousy, discord, violence, but the film's slippery fascination as sociological expose is the flip side of its thinness as drama. Read more

Liam Lacey, Globe and Mail: A film both shocking and humane, as if Taxi Driver were somehow rewritten by Chekhov. Read more

Chris Vognar, Dallas Morning News: The leisurely pace and fatalism become riveting, and the film takes on an unnerving, unblinking intimacy, even as the characters remain distant. Read more

Scott Foundas, L.A. Weekly: Panahi seems at last to speak with his own beguiling, cryptically beautiful expressiveness, which grows ever more absorbing with each of its purposefully irresolute turns. Read more

Jan Stuart, Newsday: Hot enough to have been banned in its home country, and resonant enough to command our watchful participation. Read more

Peter Rainer, New York Magazine/Vulture: I'm glad I saw Crimson Gold. Watching it is like getting a peek behind the curtain. Read more

Lisa Rose, Newark Star-Ledger: The lead character in Crimson Gold is so detached, the audience never becomes emotionally involved in the world Panahi depicts. Read more

A.O. Scott, New York Times: Jafar Panahi's film exposes the cruelties and inequities of a society sharply polarized by class and corrupted by selfishness, snobbery and cynicism. Read more

Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times: The success of Crimson Gold depends to an intriguing degree on the performance of its leading actor. Read more

Jonathan Curiel, San Francisco Chronicle: An engrossing tale of class differences that reveals tiny details of one man's descent into hell. Read more

St. Louis Post-Dispatch: Read more

Geoff Pevere, Toronto Star: It's every bit as outwardly unruffled as its hero, but inwardly it seethes with the very same gradually accumulated rage. A devastating and beautiful film. Read more

Time Out: Read more

J. Hoberman, Village Voice: A deceptively modest undertaking that brilliantly combines unpretentious humanism and impeccable formal values. Read more

Michael O'Sullivan, Washington Post: Emadeddin's performance, due either to the actor's medicated state or perhaps to the symptoms of the disease itself, is a marvel of everyman affectlessness. Read more