Critic Reviews

• Joe Morgenstern, Wall Street Journal

  This is a road movie unlike any other...

• Dave Calhoun, Time Out

  There's something Styxian about the road travelled here that's reinforced with imagery of death that elevates Ghobadi's tale above the everyday.

• Sheri Linden, Los Angeles Times

  [Director Bahman Ghobadi] sparks a deeply humanist alchemy in unsentimental tales peopled by nonprofessional actors.

• Jeannette Catsoulis, New York Times

  For his poetic fourth feature, Half Moon, Bahman Ghobadi returns to the desolation of the Kurdish borderlands and the enduring optimism of his people.

• Aaron Hillis, Village Voice

  Writer-director Bahman Ghobadi's picturesque road trip is less about preserving a musical heritage than accepting one's fate, a mythic trek that's both heartrending and boisterous -- often as hauntingly absurdist as a Kusturica carnival.

• Ty Burr, Boston Globe

  The Kurds may not yet have a country, but as long as Bahman Ghobadi keeps making movies they have a national cinema.

• Derek Malcolm, This is London

  The film, equipped with a sense of humour as well as a certain kind of Middle Eastern magic realism, has a central theme that emphasises the fate of a whole people without a country to call their own.

• Sukhdev Sandhu, Independent

  Honours and elevates the unquenchable spirit of its subjects.

• Peter Bradshaw, Guardian [UK]

  I am a little unsure that the themes, images and ideas in all this come together as satisfactorily as they should, but it is a serious and worthwhile piece of work from a director with a real cinematic language.

• Wendy Ide, Times [UK]

  The savage drama of the landscape, the indomitable optimism of the people and the passion of the ubiquitous music - almost every character is a musician - is universal in its appeal.

• Sam Jordison, Film4

  Stylish, but never quite substantial enough, Half Moon never lives up to its stunning opening sequence.

• Philip Kemp, Total Film

  Part quirky road-movie, part mythic fantasia, part rhapsodic celebration - and wholly captivating.

• Paul Arendt, BBC

  Surprisingly gripping despite its whimsical subject matter and often very funny.

• Rob Daniel, Sky Movies

  Illuminating, surreal, tear-jerking and funny, Half Moon is an unforgettable voyage into a land little seen.

• David Parkinson, Empire Magazine

  An unflinching and affecting depiction of the region's tragic lunacies.

• Frederic and Mary Ann Brussat, Spirituality and Practice

  Opens our hearts and minds to the special place musicians play in the Kurdish culture and the ways in which they celebrate the human spirit.

• Maria Garcia, Film Journal International

  Death may come with the half moon, but there remains a promise of rebirth%u2014the full moon, which illuminates even the desperate landscape of Kurdistan.

• Jay Antani, Boxoffice Magazine

  a fascinating portrait of an underrepresented people, rich in humor, pathos and possible permutations

• Fernando F. Croce, Slant Magazine

  Balancing earthy humor and scarring tragedy, Bahman Ghobadi's portraits of Kurdish wanderers are particularly expressive of Iranian cinema's sense of hope within instability.

• Robin Clifford, Reeling Reviews

  ...a moving road movie that culminates in a dramatic, music-saturated finale.

Read all 20 critic reviews