Review of The Green Wave (2012) by Mike M — 03 Oct 2011

A demonstration of the art of the modern documentarist, having to piece together a variety of different media (mobile-phone footage, Tweets, podcasts, news archive) into a coherent whole. The problem the 21st century documentarist faces is not a dearth of material, but an excess (in this instance, everything the bloggers made available online, just for starters), posing the additional problem of having to make the right choices.

Ahadi makes a good deal of these, although the animation remains his film's weakest aspect: falling some way short of the artistry of a "Persepolis" or the emotional depth of "Waltz with Bashir", it seems to be there merely to give us something to look at while the bloggers' words are read out - to distinguish "The Green Wave" from that wave of transcript-based theatrical experiences seeking to make compelling drama from everyday Iranians' Blogger accounts.