Goodbye 2011

“Sentenced to a six-year jail term alongside with fellow Iranain auteur Jafar Panahi for inciting ‘political protest’ in Iran and faced with a 20-year ban on filmmaking, Mohammad Rasoulof did what most of us would do: quickly made a movie on the sly before he was imprisoned. This tale of a pregnant lawyer in search of a clandestine exit visa for herself and her fugitve husband mirrors Rasoulof's story to an alarming degree, and its portrayal of the country as a perpetually gray wasteland run by government thugs is a case study in national paranoia. It’s also easily one of the best things I've seen at the [Cannes] festival.” — David Fear, Time Out NY

“Mohammad Rasoulof has succeeded, under what the Cannes Film Festival refers to as ‘semi-clandestine conditions,’ in completing Goodbye, a dark tale focusing on a young woman lawyer and openly attacking the blind repression of Iranian civil society. Even more than in Rasoulof’s 2009 film White Meadows, which used symbolism to talk about repression, Goodbye refuses to mince words about the frightening consequences faced by Iranian dissidents and their kin. At the same time, it is a close-up, psychologically realistic portrait of an educated professional woman grappling with an unbearable situation. Her licence to practice law has been revoked, her journalist husband has been forced to go underground, and she is considering terminating her pregnancy, which is part of a complicated scheme to leave the country.” — Deborah Young, Hollywood Reporter

“Rasoulof renders the daily suspense of living in a society plagued by repression with remarkable intimacy. It’s no wonder that Iranian forces consider him a threat, but its citizens should view this movie's miraculous last-minute arrival at Cannes as a kind of dark blessing.” — Eric Kohn, indieWIRE