Critics reviews

This idea of the death penalty being embedded within everyday life in some fashion is at the crux of this collection, with Rasoulof showing how the act of taking another human life bleeds into everything it touches, although he doesn't pass judgement on those involved, pointing instead at the system they are part of.

Many ethical dilemmas can be lengthily dissected in "There Is No Evil," but its greatest merit is that it refuses to delineate any moral grounds. The cards are handed, but, unfortunately, the game in question has no end in sight.

It's all very impactful, and Rasoulof elevates the moral tales to the stuff of cinema through allegorical visual compositions and reflective long takes. The content may be a bit heavy-handed at times, but Rasoulof's style infuses the subject matter with a sense of poetry and moral reckoning that invokes age-old Persian literary traditions.

It is strange to say, given the film’s subject matter, but in comparison to the deadening bleakness of his earlier films, There Is No Evil is actually rather less gloomy than its predecessors, and contains moments of levity and brightness.

"There Is No Evil" doesn’t try to facetiously dispel the statement that its title makes by asking whether or not evil exists. It ponders, instead, how citizen’s position themselves in relationship to the inevitable evil that runs through their country’s core, architecting its every corner and generations of people.

A major work of recent Iranian cinema. Not since "A Short Film About Killing" has a filmmaker produced such a thrilling case against capital punishment, an enraging, enthralling, enduring testament to the oppressed.

Although "There Is No Evil" is a brave and impassioned work, the seams can show through... This collection of cinematic short stories... can feel loose and uneven. If only the whole film had maintained the promise of the first of its four named chapters, which are separated by short blackscreen intervals.

Along the way, Rasoulof deploys an inspired tonal uncertainty, as each chapter involves a new angle on the emotional stakes at hand. The scope of the storytelling combines “Pulp Fiction” energy with the structural playfulness of Rasoulof’s fellow Iranian auteur Jafar Panahi, but radiates with a narrative urgency all its own.

Though the message comes across loud and clear, the four tales suffer from being narratively uneven, making the film’s two-and-a-half-hour running time seem long indeed. And yet the first untitled episode about a man who works at night is a perfectly balanced and crafted little jewel that stands out in Rasoulof’s filmography. It promises a very impressive film and it is disappointing that nothing at this level follows it.

Many of the Iranian films that find their way onto the international festival stage are famously light on plot... and could be told as half-hour shorts. By contrast, “There Is No Evil” comes across as four films for the price of one, none of its segments anemic, and each contributing fresh insights to the paradoxes of capital punishment in Iran.