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Amazon.com It's a girl. The first words spoken in Jafar Panahi's The Circle should be celebratory, but instead the mood of the scene is mournful. The relatives will be furious. Director Jafar Panahi leaves the innocence of his delightful The White Balloon behind in this harrowing, passionate portrait of the plight women endured in Iran before the easing of strict Muslim law. His vision of women scrambling through streets and dodging cops like fugitives in a police state is more of a nightmarish fable than a realist drama, but no less affecting for it. Panahi drifts through the stories of a handful of women recently released from prison (their crimes are left ominously vague) with an easy grace and an angry sense of injustice that brings us full circle: back to prison, where a cell door shuts with a deafening clang that reverberates through the credits and beyond. --Sean Axmaker ... Read more Reviews (20) 
a good film
You might be able to catch this very well-made movie in some arthouse theater or one that isn't shy and scared to play something that isn't predictable HOLLYWOOD garbage.This film is about women in IRAN and is very well done. The cinematography is impressive overall. I recommend this, but don't see it if you hate reading subtitles (it's spoken in Persian)
Wonderful, daring movie!
This movie easily became of my favorites. Along with Abbas Kiarostami's "Taste of Cherry", this one of the most daring films to come out of Iran in recent years. Director Jafar Panahi skillfully depicts the ever worsening condition of Iranian women under the Islamic regime. This is a very realistic telling of the everyday lives of Iranian women, especially those who dare to defy the repressive measures they have been forced to endure in the past 22 years. This is one movie that does not stick to cultural relativism or try to give religious justifications for how the characters are treated. It shows each of the characters as human beings with dreams and aspirations who are trapped in circumstances beyond their control. No wonder this movie was banned in Iran by the Islamic republic's board of censorship.
The cast is great, the dialogues are great and the overall setting is very realistic. The cinematography is also good. This movie may seem slow or boring to those who are not familiar with the current political setting of Iran. There are several intertwined stories in this movie and this may seem confusing to impatient viewers. Also, the subtitles are not great (as is the case with "Taste of Cherry".) * In Persian with English Subtitles
When good intentions collapse
This is an importnat and timely film, perhaps even more so now as Iran perepares for another crucial election in which moderate clerics will have to struggle against the conservative establishment, which refuses to note the calls for reform form the people. This film offers a valuable examinations of the current social and political situation in Iran. There was widespread hope that under President Khatami, Iran could have taken a more liberal course shedding by the wayside the conservative positions adopted by previous governments of the Islamic Republic. This has also been reflected in the emerging and highly acclaimed film industry, which despite its success, has tended to shun political themes. However, some signs of change are ther for those who observe carefully. In the case of Jafar Panahi's "The Circle" the political allusions are evident from the title, which serves as a metaphor for the narrative and for what Khatami's politics have so far meant to Iranians who had hoped for change, in other words their hopes have been invain.
rasitha
A time waster! If you are completely oblivious to the lack of women's rights in the Middle East, then you may find this an interesting documentary.
However, for anyone with prior appreciation of the grave situation, expecting to find an interesting story within the constraints of female society will be immensely disappointed. This film falls well short.
The LAW's life as 'law'
This is a harsh film made up of several fractured stories that eventually come all together in showing the life at the fringes of the Iranian society. It's about women, as ever culpable gender, walking the dreary space they could carve around, and temporarily away from, the LAW. These women's short lives on screen, though different, have a lot in common in their moth-like gyrations. Additionally noteworthy are the few powerful sketches of men as accomplices, LAW enforcers, women abusers, LAW distorters (i.e. 'law' abiders). The viewer's rage is well controlled; all the tragic becomes chronic sadness. Iranian expats' opinions would be more than welcome! Just above mediocre transfer on DVD.
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