Raye makhfi 2001

Marta Barber, Miami Herald: Beautiful to watch and holds a certain charm. Read more

Richard Roeper, Ebert & Roeper: There are some really funny moments in here. Read more

Kevin Thomas, Los Angeles Times: Funny, provocative, well-paced and leaves a memorable bittersweet aftertaste. Read more

Patrick Z. McGavin, Chicago Tribune: A gem, captured in the unhurried, low-key style favored by many directors of the Iranian new wave. Read more

Dave Kehr, New York Times: There are a few stabs at absurdist comedy ... but mostly the humor is of the sweet, gentle and occasionally cloying kind that has become an Iranian specialty. Read more

Jan Stuart, Newsday: Babak Payami's surreal, episodic road comedy holds our attention to alternating degrees, hamstrung by the flat-footedness of his two leads. Read more

Moira MacDonald, Seattle Times: In a movie full of surprises, the biggest is that Secret Ballot is a comedy, both gentle and biting. Read more

Lisa Schwarzbaum, Entertainment Weekly: Secret Ballot charms with its amalgam of absurdity, optimism, humor, and avuncular regard for the million small daily chores, rituals, suspicions, and courtesies of dwellers on even the sparsest spots on earth. Read more

Ray Conlogue, Globe and Mail: A beguiling, slow-moving parable about the collision of past and present on a remote seacoast in Iran. Read more

Ella Taylor, L.A. Weekly: Payami uses an exquisitely delicate juxtaposition of long shots and close-ups, mobility and stillness, music and found sound, comedy and pathos to suggest both the longing for self-expression and communication, and its limits in a repressive society. Read more

Andrew Sarris, New York Observer: Some of the longest takes in the history of cinema, and a precious bit of ethnographic essence for moviegoers who can appreciate political irony for its own sake. Read more

Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times: There has been much puzzlement among critics about what the election symbolizes. I believe the message is in the messenger: The agent is a woman. Read more

Carla Meyer, San Francisco Chronicle: Secret Ballot is too contemplative to be really funny. Read more

St. Louis Post-Dispatch: Read more

Derek Adams, Time Out: Read more

J. Hoberman, Village Voice: Methodical, measured, and gently tedious in its comedy, Secret Ballot is a purposefully reductive movie -- which may be why it's so successful at lodging itself in the brain. Read more