Ghorban Ali Naderi has two mentally retarded daughters. For years, he kept them locked up in his house, not allowing them to go to school or outside, simply out of fear for their wellbeing and out of misguided parenthood. Eventually the neighbours complained and it all turned into a huge scandal, thanks to the media. Samirah Makhmalbaf, at that time seventeen, was deeply moved by their story and wanted to tell it. She contacted the Naderi family and actually persuaded them be part of “The Apple”.

Thanks to her father, Mohsen Makhmalbaf, who not only wrote the script, edited the film and arranged for Samirah to get equipment and crew, Samirah thus made her first film.

The approach to the story is highly unusual, as Makhmalbaf chooses to have the Naderis play themselves, having the neighbours play themselves and have family and friends act bit parts. It is not documentary, but it is not a docudrama either. It becomes reality realised. As such, there is no real story, more a series of events, which are observed rather than told.

One might be inclined to view the story as a reflection upon Iranian society: A dominant patriarch, imprisoned women and a blind mother. This approach is further supported by the title, “The Apple”, the biblical instrument by which men and women lost their innocence and were driven out of the garden of Eden.

Where the two other films by Samirah Makhmalbaf are very focussed in its critic, “The Apple” is somewhat casual, most likely because of the nature of the story and how its told. But it remains an impressive and very mature work for a first time director.
 

Henrik Sylow