Edinburgh Int’l Film Festival 2013: From Tehran to London

by Michael Pattison, Front Row Reviews

At the present crossroads, the conditions under which Iran’s national cinema is being made (or not being made, as is often the case) are as worthy of analysis as the films themselves. Precisely because Iranian filmmakers are currently under threat of artistic censorship and/or legal restriction (such as house arrest or even a prison sentence), however, their output has enjoyed an unquestioned critical status, as if an artist working within and against such suppression is by default a genius. As Jafar Panahi’s This Is Not a Film demonstrated last year, though, courage is not equable to insight. Condemnation of a political regime does not therefore preclude criticism of the art conditioned by it; for too long now, Iran’s more internationally celebrated filmmakers have, for numerous reasons, misplaced their focus and/or shirked the grander questions facing them.

In the case of Mania Akbari’s latest work From Tehran to London, it’s unlikely that anyone will see the film without prior knowledge that only half of it was completed. It opens with a dedication to “all the filmmakers in Iran, who have served a prison sentence and the ones who are still in prison”, and toward the end of its 45 minutes the director herself tells us in voice-over that production was stopped after crew members were arrested; to begin with, Akbari had never been granted permission from the Iranian government to make the film. While it’s important to draw attention to this continually criminal administration, the fear is that the film itself is consequently celebrated as an inherently perceptive work.

This is not the case. From Tehran to London, originally titled Women Do Not Have Breasts, unfolds as a series of conversational exchanges between a petty bourgeois couple Ava (Neda Amiri) and Ashkan (Bijan Daneshmand), living in their plush home on the outskirts of Tehran, and their housemaid Maryam (Elahe Hesari) and Ava’s sister, Roya (Akbari). The film’s single-take set-ups will be familiar to those who have seen Akbari’s notable debut 20 Fingers (2004), as will the kind of talky intellectualising and cerebral but tempestuous self-assessments with which its characters converse. Sourness is never too far away.

20 Fingers starred Daneshmand and Akbari as the often-bickering couple; here, Daneshmand and Amiri, both playing artists, talk through their trivial problems while getting ready for an evening out in their spacious bathroom (“can you flush after you piss” / “you don’t even put the toilet seat down”). Outside, meanwhile, dogs bark and thunder rumbles, both of which contribute to the general claustrophobia, heightening tensions while providing sonic evidence of this couple’s walled-in seclusion. As characters talk over one another, that too-easy conversational claustrophobia begins to grate, and the irritation that stems from being made witness to the daily travails of pretty unpleasant folk – which also pervaded Kiarostami’s Ten (2002), in which Akbari acted – sets in to linger like an odious stench.

Perspective is everything. As one character notes, “sometimes people are so close that they cannot see each other”. But from this mannered swamp, a question emerges: what insights are we meant to draw from an artistic representation such as this? That men are shits and that Iranian society is patriarchal? At least one of those true, but is it not possible that Akbari’s own narrow perspective prevents her from seeing (let alone analysing) the material social conditions by which this might be the case? As it is, From Tehran to London’s problem is fundamental: it was an incomplete picture long before it became a “half-finished film”.

Via Front Row Reviews

The tragic endings of Iranian cinema

Iranian cinema has effectively undergone a "brain drain" due to the policies of the Islamic republic.

Iranian director Jafar Panahi, among many others, has been banned from filmmaking in Iran. Courtesy Reuters and Al Jazeera

by Hamid Dabashi, Al Jazeera

They say choose your enemies carefully, for you will end up most resembling them. The trap is particularly treacherous for artists living under political tyranny. One can now see the wisdom of why the leading Iranian filmmaker Abbas Kiarostami has so carefully skirted politics, even in the direst circumstances, and thus safeguarded his cinema from falling victim to that overriding wisdom. One hundred years from now, the best of Kiarostami's cinema will still mesmerise, baffle, and reward, when many other politically potent filmmakers will scarce be remembered.

Kiarostami's longtime protege Jafar Panahi, however, has not heeded that wisdom, or the logic of his own mentor, and thus now seems like one of the most precious victims of the brutal theocracy he has valiantly opposed and to whose trap, alas, his cinema is falling head first.

Jafar Panahi's most recent film, Parde/Closed Curtain (2013) "has won the top prize for best screenplay at the 63rd Berlin film festival". Co-directed by Kamboziya Partovi, and in defiance of a 20-year ban on filmmaking, "the winner of the 2012 Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought, Panahi has been held under house arrest since December 2010 for allegedly making antigovernment propaganda".

Needless to say, the custodians of the Islamic republic weren't very happy with the events in Berlin: An Iranian filmmaker that was banned from making any films went ahead and made a film that won a top prize at a major European film festival.

According to reports, "Iran has protested against the awarding of a Silver Bear to Jafar Panahi for his film Closed Curtain (Parde) at the 63rd Berlin film festival, the ISNA news agency reported."

What would become of a filmmaker when his work of art is so crowdedly fused with the politics of his time?

Cinema and politics

Because of his active and courageous support for the Green Movement in Iran, Jafar Panahi has been given a prison sentence and banned from filmmaking for twenty years. Defying that ban, he has made two films - This is not a Film (2012) and Closed Curtain (2013) - both screened at Berlin Film Festival and then to an appreciable global celebration.

Both these films, alas, are self-indulgent vagaries farthest removed from the masterpieces like Offside (2006), Crimson Gold (2003) or Circle (2000) that have made Panahi a global celebrity. He should have heeded the vicious sentence and stayed away from his camera for a while and not indulge, for precisely the selfsame social punch that have made his best films knife-sharp precise has now dulled the wit of the filmmaker that was once able to put it to such magnificent use.

Not only physically but also mentally and emotively, Panahi is not in a position to think and film in his habitual engagement with his homeland. He is angry, and rightly so - and anger should never be the paramount sentiment when one stands behind a camera or in front of a keyboard. Given the political sentiments that film festival authorities around the globe have for Panahi, they indulge him in a political solidarity that dulls the wit of his cinematic judgment. These consolation prizes are a curse in disguise.

Panahi is not the only Iranian filmmaker who has become a victim of his courageous political stands. Another major force in Iranian cinema, Mohsen Makhmalbaf, shares his fate. After years of celebrated filmmaking in his homeland, Makhmalbaf began to make films in surrounding countries - Turkey, Afghanistan, Pakistan, India, and Tajikistan - before he and his filmmaking family moved to Europe, and eventually lived initially in Paris and then London. Most recently, he has travelled to Israel and made another film, Gardener (2012) - this time in a Bahai temple.

Far from his natural habitat in the urban settings of his homeland, Makhmalbaf and his family are like fish out of water - with critical tenacity and remarkable cinematic verve continuing to make films, but, again, alas, his panache for virtual realism has now degenerated into angry and futile denunciations of his own culture and clime. The golden period of Makhmalbaf's filmmaking in the 1990s - with masterpieces like Once Upon a Time Cinema (1992) and A Moment of Innocence (1996) - now seems like the distant dreams of another lifetime, when Makhmalbaf had his hands on the pulse of his people.

Following Mohsen Makhmalbaf, another icon of Iranian cinema, Bahram Beizai, has also left Iran and now lives in California. So far, he has judiciously stayed away from his camera and busied himself with staging his old plays, and with research and writing. For thirty years, Beizai has been subject to the vicious censorial policies of the Islamic republic that scarce allowed him to make films, and on the rare occasion he's allowed, his cinema exudes with his creative genius though marred with much existential angst, anger, and arrogance.

Long before both Makhmalbaf and Beizai and is yet another major force in Iranian cinema, Amir Naderi left his homeland for good and moved to New York (with recent sojourns to Japan), where he has made a number of critically acclaimed films in his adopted settings - films like Marathon (1997) or Cut (2012) - that can scarce be considered part of "Iranian cinema" anymore. With remarkable tenacity and under exceedingly difficult circumstances and almost non-existent resources, Naderi has kept his cinema afloat, but his vision and imagination have long since departed from his homeland.

Even those who have opted to stay in Iran have not faired any better. Consider the doyen of Iranian cinema, Daryoush Mehrjui, whose cinema - graced with such masterpieces as The Cow (1969) and The Tenants (1986) - suffered massively once his literary comrade Gholam Hossein Saedi (1936-1985) left Iran and opted to live with the pain of exile in Paris until his premature death.

Another monumental figure in Iranian cinema, Sohrab Shahid Sales (1944-1998) ran away from the horrid censorial policies of the Islamic republic until his premature death in Chicago. Before his death, Shahid Sales had made major inroads into German New Cinema, by making some of his best films in his host country. But just like Naderi, this aspect of his cinema is scarce known in Iran, let alone being part of "Iranian cinema".

Even before Shahid Sales, Parviz Sayyad had left his homeland in disgust and opted to live in Los Angeles, smack in the heart of the infested environment of the most useless and pestiferous Iranian community, to which the ugly faces of the Shahs of Sunset does perfect justice. Thus Iranian cinema lost one of its most gifted filmmakers from the robust environment of 1970s Iran to the sick and corrupt life of Tehrangeles.

Another vastly promising Iranian filmmaker, Bahman Qobadi began his career with making groundbreaking films like A Time for Drunken Horses (2000) and Songs of my Motherland (2002) - to which it was later opportunistically titled Marooned in Iraq to bank on the market of US-led invasion of Iraq - but soon began losing connection to his natural Kurdish habitat long before he left Iran, and became a businessman with an eye to the deeply divided and flawed Iranian expat community, with his most recent film simply unwatchable.

But not all Iranian filmmakers who left their homeland lost their senses of who and what they are. Like Amir Naderi, Susan Taslimi, a prodigious actress who graced Iranian cinema and theatre for decades, left Iran and opted to live in Sweden where she became an exceedingly successful actress and director in her adopted language and culture - and today, for all intents and purposes, she is a Swedish actress and filmmaker.

Examples abound and the point here is not to be exhaustive, but simply to mark the historic moment when the ungodly censorial polices of the Islamic republic, the injudicious choices of some filmmakers, and perhaps even more critically the aesthetic exhaustion of Iranian cinema as we have known and admired it for decades has brought a magnificent artistic adventure to an end.

Towering over all his colleagues, Abbas Kiarostami has made his last few films outside Iran - and scarce his compatriots have seen these films let alone have any affinity with them. While expanding his cinematic repertoire in new and perhaps even unchartered directions, a film such as Like Someone in Love (2012) shot in Japan or Certified Copy (2010) set in Tuscany, can hardly be called an "Iranian film".

Unnatural rule, misty dreams

The ruling regime in Iran has succeeded in ripping the leading Iranian filmmakers from the fabric of their society and cast them into vague and ambiguous environments about which they know very little. Given their creative ingenuity - as now perhaps best evident in the works of Jafar Panahi or Mohsen Makhmalbaf - they can manage to create almost anywhere, from their living room to the occupied Palestine, but the result begins to abstract the filmmakers from that certain intuition of transcendence that approximates an artist to the sacred precincts of her and his culture.

Cultural production is not a monogamous proposition. Art is promiscuous and keeps changing creative partnership - with poets one day, novelists another, and then off to filmmakers, dramatists, bloggers, musicians, journalist, you name it. Today, Iranian underground music is in tune with the pulse of the nation with the same verve and pulsation that Iranian cinema once was.

This is not to say Iranian cinema has no future - but that future is being mapped out and navigated on unchartered territories far from major European or even non-European film festivals. Under the radar is now a young generation of filmmakers whose courageous and imaginative works are yet to receive any recognition in their own homeland or celebration in any major film festival. Right there, in the misty excitement of that haphazard anonymity, there is a Forough Farrokhzad feeling her way towards the making of her House is Black, and keeping her company are her legendry contemporaries - here is the young Daryoush Mehrjui, and there is Amir Naderi, and I see Bahram Beizai standing there - and how fortunate that they still don't know who they are, and how unfathomable is the dream they are yet to narrate and name.


Hamid Dabashi is Hagop Kevorkian Professor of Iranian Studies and Comparative Literature at Columbia University in New York. Among his books is Masters and Masterpieces of Iranian Cinema (2007).

Via Al Jazeera

Behind Closed Doors

Iran's International Fajr Festival

Smog covers the Milad telecommunications tower as it appears behind traffic lights in northwestern Tehran. Courtesy of AFP/Getty Images and Qantara.

The organizers at this year's Fajr Festival appear to have been chiefly concerned with issuing the mandatory conclusion that in view of the countless protest movements, the West is at the end of its tether. But even at this state-sponsored cultural event, Iran's very own crisis is tangible.

by Amin Farzanefar, Qantara.de

The Iranian capital Tehran is one of the most polluted cities in the world. At an altitude of 1,500 metres, the thinning air is exacerbated by the fact that due to fuel supplies limited by sanctions, three-and-a-half million cars run on home-brewed diesel. On good days, you can just about make out the Milad Tower – the film festival took place on the ground floor of the 6th tallest tower in the world in the world – through the haze of smog. But even here, Iran's crisis is tangible.

For a while, it was touch and go whether the festival would take place at all, due to concerns that there was barely enough celluloid material to make the film copies. Organisation was more chaotic than usual: The catalogue wasn't ready until three days after the festival had had begun, few of the films had been subtitled, and simultaneous interpretation for foreign correspondents and curators, of which there only appeared to be a handful on this occasion, also came to an end at some point.

There were nevertheless a few choice films for local audiences: Michael Haneke's "Amour", Volker Schlöndorff's French resistance film "The Morning Sea" and Roman Polanski's biting comedy "God of Carnage".

Discussing Islamophobia and Iranophobia in Tehran

A conference held on the sidelines of the festival – the "Third International Conference on Hollywood and Cinema" – attracted considerably more international guests than the event itself.

Laming enthusiasm: Ticket sales at this year's Fajr Festival were lower than usual. Moreover, organisation was more chaotic than usual: The catalogue wasn't ready until three days after the festival had had begun. Courtesy of Qantara.

Held at the luxury Azadi Hotel – the name means "freedom" – the meeting involved 50 experts from mostly western nations spending four days discussing the subject of Islamophobia and Iranophobia: the negative clichés of western movie culture in relation to Islam and Iran.

Special attention in this debate was afforded to Ben Affleck's "Argo", which has just won an Oscar. The film is set in 1979 during the hostage crisis at the US embassy in Tehran, when a CIA agent smuggled six hostages out of the country by claiming they were working on a trashy science fiction movie.

Shortly before, the Iranian government had announced it would be financing a movie to correct what it claims is the distorted and one-sided US reading of the story with a version based on historic truths as told by eyewitness reports. It remains to be seen whether or not this new Iranian version will include the embarrassing detail that the authorities took seven days to realise that the hostages had escaped.

Part of a worldwide anti-imperialist movement

When conference participants demand that the omnipotence of Hollywood movies should be countered by a bolstering of independent media and the Internet, it should be noted that this demand is being issued in a country with strict Internet censorship, where just a few days previously, 16 journalists were arrested...

Conference participants meanwhile perceive themselves as part of a worldwide movement encompassing Africa, Asia and Latin America and seeking affiliation with the Occupy movement. An honourable approach, but its concrete configuration turned out to be highly tendentious: The US film industry is essentially viewed as part of a Zionist-Imperialist conspiracy.

"Distorted and one-sided US reading": Ben Affleck's "Argo" tells the story of the rescue of six U.S. diplomats from Tehran during the 1979 Iran hostage crisis. The Iranian government has announced it will be financing a movie according to the Iranian version of events. "Argo" recently won three Oscars, a further provocation for Tehran. Courtesy of Qantara.

Whether by reputable or dubious means, organisers appear to have been chiefly concerned with issuing the mandatory conclusion that in view of the countless protest movements, the West is at the end of its tether and that only Islam can offer salvation.

The peculiarities of Iranian cinema

Conditions for filmmakers in Iran have never been ideal, but censorship has led to the development of a complex, ambiguous pictorial language. Constraints are especially invasive at present – although 80 films have again been made despite the restrictions. The children featured in many Iranian movies of the past, and which enjoyed success at international festivals, have now grown into young adults, tired and mellow. Iranian cinema used to be about solidarity, now it's all about an unbridled greed for money.

"We've become wolves for each other," says a taxi driver on the way to the Milad Tower. You hear utterances like this frequently, in taxis and in movies.

Social criticism is acceptable to a certain degree – as long as it is not open criticism of the system. Asghar Farhadi's sensational Berlinale and Oscar success "A Separation", for example, which is representative of a whole series of social-realist films on the crisis of a middle class crippled by heightened economic and ideological limitations.

But all in all – and in particular following election unrest of 2009 – filmmakers now have even less room for movement: Arrests have been made, people have been banned from pursuing their profession, and the independent alliance "Khaneh Cinema" was closed down.

Iran's sordid isolation

An observation: international isolation and control of the public arena are increasingly leading to a transposition of the action to places behind closed doors, also in films. Following a breathtaking opening sequence heralding something more akin to a roadmovie, Parviz Shahbazi then consigns "Darband" to the rooms of an illegal female student flatshare. This movie also addresses the issues of money, greed and deception: In the end, a female student absconds to the West with her roommates' cash.

Politics creeping into cinema: "International isolation and control of the public arena are increasingly leading to a transposition of the action to places behind closed doors, also in films," Amin Farzanefar observes. - Scene from Maijid Barzegar's "Parviz". Courtesy of Qantara.

"Acting Class" by Reza Davoudnejad is a quite bizarre family drama –made with a hand-held camera, interspersed with commentaries from the actors and director, in the style of a film workshop – enthusiastic, playful, avant-garde and filmed almost exclusively in an apartment. This conjures up a mercurial, spontaneous portrait of a large Iranian family.

Davoudnejad serves as a kind of master of ceremonies, commenting on the action with a felt-tip pen and a flip chart. "The world's not good," complains the unhappy grandmother in the film. "Then let's just make another one!" says the 50-year-old brightly, erasing the sentence. The spontaneous burst of applause from the audience in moments such as this one is evidence that people do still harbour some hope.

Self-righteous perspectives

Dariush Mehrjui, founding father of the Iranian "Nouvelle vague" in the 1970s presented "How great you're back", a film showing old friends celebrating the return of another friend to the Caspian Sea: a surprisingly familiar middle class milieu experimenting with yoga, healing stones and other substances, as though searching for an alternative to prescribed piety.

Mehrjui, a controversial figure due to the turbulent twists and turns of his own life, contrasted the self-righteous perspectives of this year's Fajr Festival with something Dionysian – although this time, audiences were less receptive to the capers.

Nevertheless Mehrjui's film was screened in a large cinema, while less agreeable movies are hidden away in smaller venues and screened at later times. Independent filmmakers are not really made to feel part of the Fajr Festival, but neither are they embraced anywhere else – so although they may welcome the solidarity of the Berlinale with the persecuted director Jafar Panahi currently under house arrest, they also bemoan the fact that other films made under the most difficult conditions but without publicity, have little chance of being screened at any of the major festivals.

"Parviz" by Maijid Barzegar, without doubt one of the best works shown as this year's event, is one of the few films to have already been screened at international festivals. The 50-year-old, emotionally somewhat retarded Parviz is thrown out of his house by his father, quickly learns how heartless other people can be and begins to establish a reign of terror. This touches on many virulent issues: A lack of perspectives, a lack of social coherence, an order based on power structures, general social and economic crisis.

Long queues gathered for the second late screening of "Parviz" at the Azadi cinema, spectators chanted demands to be let in, with security forces eventually threatening to use tear gas to disperse the crowds. There it is again: protest bubbling up from the street.


Translated from the German by Nina Coon. Editor: Lewis Gropp.

Via Qantara.de

Berlinale — Odes to Banned Iranian Work

Panahi Returns, an Artist is Re-Discovered

The Iranian Director Jafar Panahi. Courtesy Artinfo

by David D'Arcy, Artinfo

The Iranian director Jafar Panahi was back at the Berlinale this year, or at last his new film Closed Curtain was. Last year Panahi was a member of the jury, represented by an empty chair – a tribute, but this was the chair B.C., Before Clint, before Dirty Harry weaponized it as an insult prop at the Republican Convention.

Panahi is under house arrest in Iran for making propaganda against the Islamic regime. He is lucky that he is not in prison. His international reputation and the support of admirers outside Iran is largely responsible for keeping the regime from locking him up.  He is still banned from making films for 20 years. We’ll see what happens to him now that Closed Curtain is being praised.

Panahi’s new film is set in an apartment facing what looks like the Caspian Sea. They call it a lake in the subtitles. A man is hiding there, with his loyal dog, who steals the show. The dog watches television sadly as images show the government that mistreats its people killing dogs in the street and piling up their bodies. The man shaves his head, perhaps in the hope that he won’t be recognized if the curtain is pulled back. He attends to his work, yet there’s a constant temptation to leave the house and walk into the waves of the beach across the road, ending it all. The threat of suicide can rightly be seen as something special in Iran, where bombers do it as a service to God, or pay people around the world to do it.

 

Man and Dog -- Two Persecuted Species in 'Closed Curtain'. Courtesy Artinfo

Panahi’s collaborator, co-director Kambuzia Partovi, said at a Berlinale press conference that the two men made the film because they wanted to work. Being inactive under that regime, besides acknowledging its power over you, demoralizes you to a dangerous point. Closed Curtain explores these anxieties in a fable. A young couple of outcasts comes in and out. The gentle dog is a charming witness and sounding board. I heard a critic call the film self-indulgent – a bit misguided, if you consider that an assertion of self against the Almighty’s domination of the Everyday is an act of courage, an act of survival.

If You Can't Work, Why Not End It All?  Courtesy Artinfo

Someone is sure to note triumphantly that the restrictions placed upon Panahi have required him to be rigorous in his storytelling, to make more with less. I hope he doesn’t have to read that condescending nonsense.

Also originating in Iran – in Iranian culture, more specifically – is Fifi Howls at Happiness – a documentary by Mitra Farahani about Bahman Mohassess, an artist who was at odds with multiple regimes in Iran, ever since the UK and the US toppled the Mossadegh regime that tried to nationalize the petroleum industry in 1954.

Bahman Mohassess, Smoked Out by Mitra Farahani. Courtesy Artinfo

Farahani, who lives in Paris, tracked the artist down in Rome. In the film, produced by an Iranian-American in the San Francisco Bay Area, she won’t say how she achieved that. After convincing him to talk to her, he speaks of making some topical political pictures – which name their subjects rather than depict them in any discernible way. Fifi, the name in the title, is a silhouetted figure in red with a grotesquely thin neck and a rectangular face , a shape that seems influenced by Dubuffet and that crowd. The figure holds his arm upright against his chest – the defiance of the artist? This artist, who admits shredding most of his art in Tehran, would never sell or part with this one. It hangs behind him for most of the film.

Mohassess also worked for the Shah – created his likeness, that is. He made a sculpture of the Iranian monarch and his wife, which raised some questions when the Shah’s facial expression turned out not to be regal enough. It certainly wasn’t regal enough for the mullahs, or maybe too regal. Footage in the doc seems to show the work being dismantled.

As the chainsmoking Mohassess ranges far and wide about Iran, about his own homosexuality (he liked straight boys), and about destroying his own work, he punctuates obscene proclamations with poetry. Two artists arrive to commission a new painting from him. Rokni and Ramin Haerizadeh, painters from a later generation who have fled Tehran and relocated in Dubai, ask Mohassess to create a work of art for them. They are admirers, and clients. There’s demand among ex-patriate Iranians, and not much to buy.

An Assemblage by Bahman Mohassess. Courtesy Artinfo

It’s tempting to think of Sheherazade when you see the Mohassess, smoke curling upward from a cigarette in his hand, talking endlessly to the brothers about the work that he has yet to create. Is he procrastinating, waiting them out, refusing to acknowledge to this Rosenkrantz and Guildenstern that he may be past his powers? Is he anticipating that his powers may be too much for them? Farahani brings in a discussion of Balzac’s The Unknown Masterpiece to frame Mohassess’s position as he faces a younger generation and a world of art created under conditions of luxury.

How do you resolve this dilemma? Do you talk eloquently from your position as dean (albeit disappeared) of an artistic diaspora, or do you make a painting that relies only on your reputation. It takes you back to Closed Curtain, where the dilemma is represented by the curtain – the curtain is closed, to conceal you from the outside, but you are tempted to pull it back and plunge through the picture window, for all to see. It’s as final as a performance can get.

Mohassess falls ill. He dies, as the camera is rolling. Farahani is too respectful to show it. But even before her film, Mohassess has been brought back from what many assumed was oblivion. An exhibition next year at the Museum of Modern Art of the City of Paris will show Iranian art from the 1950’s through the 1970’s – another lost generation. Get ready for more conversations like those in Fifi Howls at Happiness.


David D’Arcy writes about film for Screen International, The National (Abu Dhabi), the San Francisco Chronicle and other publications. He is frequently heard talking about movies on BBC Radio.

Via Artinfo

Iranian Cinema – national domain or part of the world cinemas?

by Ulla Fudge

The broader framework of cinemas of the world combines certain ideas and ideologies, defining the main attributes yet in the same time often going beyond the basic understanding of its definition. One thing is certain, world cinema works as oppose to the hegemonic Hollywood paradigm. Instead of commodification and standardization, world cinema underlines their tendencies towards originality and self-depiction. Nagib Lucia argues that: ‘At the core of this proposal is the belief that different cinemas of the world can generate their own, original theories. They do not depend of paradigms set by the so-called Hollywood classical, narrative style and in most cases are misunderstood if seen in this light’ (Nagib, 2011). The world cinema tends to focus on the question of realism that is present outside and within the frame.  Certain representations and depictions of social constrain and values from a national point of view connoted onto a cinematic image, play against the artifice and wide spread disneylazation.

Yet this notion of different film practises that involve more complex narrative, lack of stars, location in deprived areas, low budgets and therefore less commercially driven distribution, defines those films as ‘the other’. Lucia Nagib disagrees with the definition, saying that: ‘In multicultural, multi-ethnic societies like ours, cinematic expressions from various origins cannot be seen as ‘the other’ for the simple reason that they are us. More interesting than their difference is, in most cases, their interconnectedness’ (Nagib, 2011). By opening and show casting the national aspects of particular countries to worldwide audiences the film makers of world cinemas not only reveal the unknown territories but interlink the image with the viewer, creating an experience that can also include an emotional or identification involvement. However the term ‘the other’ doesn’t always connotes isolation as such. It can also open the doors to foreign, unknown territories. Michael Chanan argues that: ‘From time to time we’re reminded of this otherness by new cinematic waves from countries previously beyond the horizon, like Iran or China, which stimulate great interest precisely because there is nothing like cinema to create new imaginary geographies of far-away and unknown places’  (Chanan, 2011). Indeed cinemas of the world through their forms of realism often show cast a different approach to stylistic and narrative notions, applying their own, separate set of rules, indicating a flow towards hybridisation rather than influenced by hegemonic film making. Especially film makers from nations that have strong ethnical, political and religious clashes like Muslims or countries with strong social injustice and disturbing past, found their niche within the frame of world cinema. One of them is Iran.

This essay will examine the Iranian film directed by Rakhshan Bani – Etemad ‘Under the City’s Skin’ (2001) as an example of a film that can be located within the framework of world cinema, beginning with a brief glance at the Iranian cinema as a whole. Further on I would like to focus on the world audiences and their experience in viewing ‘Under the City’s Skin’, also addressing the term of ‘national’ and the distribution processes employed within the global frame.

Iranian Cinema after many years of dry spells, caused by political and social instability managed to remerged with a very unique set of stylistic and narrative notions. Particularly the 1990’s started a new period within Iranian cinema, significantly moving towards the privileged niche among other national cinemas. ‘By the late 1990’s indeed, cinema in Iran appeared to be flourishing, its remarkable transformation paralleling wider changes in Iranian culture and society. It is widely recognised not merely as a distinctive ‘national cinema’ but as one of the most innovative and exciting in the world’ (Tapper, 2002). Films like Children of Heaven (1998) by Majid Majidi, Jafar Panahi’s ‘White Ballon’ (1995) and ‘The Circle’ (2000), Abbas Kiarostami’s ‘The Taste of Cherry’ (1997) or ‘Ten’ (2002), are few of many films that won vast amount of awards on international festivals.

Nevertheless, their success is mainly interconnected with the reception of the world wide audiences, with large percentage of East and West Europeans,   placing Iranian cinema in an Art Film category. The Iranian film managed in its original representation not only the depiction of Iranian realism, but also presents cinematic and stylistic notions that can be associated outside their boarders. More so, their films seem to appeal and are focusing on international audiences, employing various elements of storytelling techniques, strongly influenced by Italian neo-realism, French new wave and western cinematic forms of narratives. Laura Malvey argues, in regards to the positive reception of Iranian cinema in Europe: ‘The austerity of Iranian post-revolutionary cinema, beyond the case of Kiarostami himself, allows a space for form, for style and for thought about the cinema that has only sporadically been achieved here over recent years. This formal and intellectual cinema creates the ‘cinematic’ space of interaction and exchange between spectator and screen that defines art cinema’ (Mulvey, 2004).  Furthermore, as a result of their success Iranian cinema moved to auteurism, where Iranian film makers made their names, and alike Pedro Almodovar or Michael Haneke bring the audiences to cinemas. ‘The new films introduced the notion of director as auteur and the idea of cinema as an art like literature, poetry and theatre’ (Tapper, 2002). Makhmalbaf’s saga, Kiarostami, Bani- Etemad or Panahi are only few among strongly defined authorial presence worldwide.

The specific complexity of known and unknown facets within the Iranian cinema works not only because of its exotics but also because of its ability to connect with the viewer beyond the national connotations. ‘Under the City’s Skin’ directed by Bani-Etemad is an example of Iranian cinema that works well beyond the boarders and seems to adapt certain criteria and ideologies that make possible to allocate the film within world cinemas category.

‘Under the City’s Skin’ tells a story about a family that struggles not only because of the lack of money but also because of many dilemmas they are facing. In the capital city Tehran that is torn between modernization, tradition and corruption, Abbas, the oldest son, works for a textile shop owner in order to earn enough money to go to Japan and get a profitable employment. He tries to convince his old and tired mother, Tuba, who works in the factory to sell their home, to help him financing his trip and promises her financial rewards when he is back.  Sadly, the company he hands the money to in order to obtain the visa closes down and leaves him with nothing. As a result, he turns to crime and pays a bitter price for it. Nevertheless, the plot also strongly revolves around Abbas’s family; his sick father, who is unable to assist with any help,  younger brother, a university student who disagrees with the Iranian government and a sister, a young teenager, trying to find her place within society, unable to fully fit or appreciate the rules thrown upon her as a young woman. In the end Abbas in a desperate attempt to earn money tries to smuggle heroin, yet unsuccessful gets to the point of no return that leaves also his family stranded and penniless.

In order to locate ‘Under the City’s Skin’ within the broader framework of cinemas of the world this part of the essay will focus on the narrative as such, moving to the film’s particular elements that found its appeal among viewers, and then addressing the question of ‘national’ within the extensive understanding of global audiences.

When it comes to the basic definition of the cinemas of the world ‘Under the City’s Skin’ ticks all the necessary boxes. Saeed Zeydabadi – Nejad sums up the latter and many other Iranian films by saying: ‘They are mainly made with non-professional actors, are filmed on location rather than in studios, contain a number of long takes, blur the boundary between documentary and fiction, and many of their narratives are open ended. A main feature of many such films is that they appear to be ‘a slice of life’, with seemingly little dramatization or fictionalization. The stories are often about the urban or rural poor’ (Nejad, 2010). Indeed, in ‘Under the City’s Skin’ all those elements are present. The action takes place in Tehran, and the urban location is very primary to the action. The tall buildings, the restaurants connote the new emerging Iran, while poor houses on the outskirts of the city remind us about the real people occupying the urban spaces. The family that Beni-Etemad portrays lives in poverty, struggling not only with the issues of their family but also with their financial and social situation that is heavily influenced by the politics and ideology ruling in Iran. ‘Films like ‘The Bride’ and ‘Under the Skin of the City’ presented the sense of immorality and disorder that were subtly manifest in Iran’s economic situation. Everything is for sale; families are betrayed, mothers abandoned, honour smothered through unlawful acts, and the hero is eventually at the mercy of the success for which he has sold himself’ (Sadr, 2006). This impossible ‘to get out’ situation is also strongly underlined by a certain anarchism when it comes to the law. This is visible when Abbas loses his savings he handed to the agency to get a visa. By arrival he sees that they escaped with his money. It is obvious that he will never be able to get his money back. The same happens when the father and Abbas sell their little house to the property buyer. When the mother begs him to sell the house back to her, he rejects her harshly, and by being a woman and additionally a poor civilian she has no right to appeal.  The viewer is also aware that despite the stylistic notions, Beni-Etemad wishes to present the real Iranian people, portraying their existence and documenting real life events. The reminder would be the beginning and the end of the movie, where she films the mother being interviewed at work in the factory, talking directly to the camera, which furthermore increases the viewer’s awareness.

This leads us to yet another issue that cinema of the world invites and that is the situation of women within a society. Iran deals with this matter in majority of their films, seeing not only an injustice but a broad topic needed to be explored. The film director Kiarostami, talks about the female portrayal: ‘‘Women are beautiful and complex which makes them good cinematic subjects’; He also said that the representation of women in Iranian cinema so far had not been realistic, because female characters in the films are limited to devoted mothers, scheming seductresses, or women who are unrealistically strong. He added that in Iranian cinema, making films about women is a trend from which he could not stay away (Nejad, 2010). In case of Beni–Etemad who herself is a female, we observe women from a female director point of view. In ‘Under the City’s Skin’ we get to know the mother, working hard all her life, trying to sustain her family together, but hit with flows of injustice, poverty and lack of any sort of normality. Abbas’s sister is an example of a teenager, who starves for freedom in a desperate attempt of self-expression. Yet not her but her close friend steps against the written rules, escaping from her family house. Her story ends badly, as she is forced to live on the streets and becomes not only social outsider but also dead to her family.

The films of Iran do not promise a happy end. Also the audiences do not expect one. There also is no hero. Abbas may be an example of a fighter, but his story ends badly and he is condemned to exile within his own country. This large portion of realism connotes what is important for the cinema of the worlds, which is the depiction of specific identities and an open window towards ideologies and politics that are normally closed to the outside public. Yet another important element in films like ‘Under the City’s Skin’ is the promotion of distraction of pleasure. Laura Mulvey, in her essay ‘Distraction of Pleasure as a Radical Weapon’, while comparing Hollywood to an alternative cinema discusses a particular way of perceiving an image. Her general argument also applies to the notion of world cinema. Mulvey sees Hollywood as a representative of a visual pleasure, underlining the need of more original visual expression that challenges rather than only entertain. She writes: ‘However self-conscious and ironic Hollywood managed to be, it always restricted itself to a formal mise-en-scene reflecting the dominant ideological concept of the cinema. The alternative cinema provides a space for a cinema to be born which is radical in both a political and in aesthetic sense and challenges the basic assumptions of the mainstream film’ (Mulvey, 1990). The narrative in ‘Under the City’s Skin’ doesn’t invite to only sit back and enjoy like in Hollywood productions, but to actively observe, making own assumptions, without expecting the obvious or count on a happy ending. We, as a viewers are not able to tell how Abbas will end up or what will happen to his family. The last shot presents his mother talking to the camera, revealing her pain, anger and despair. At the beginning of the film she seems rather timid and scared of the camera, yet the last shot makes us aware that her patience wears off and her hope for better tomorrow fails.

The audiences are able to follow the story of the characters in ‘Under the City’s Skin’ in a specific time of their lives, without a pressure of conclusion or a pressure to split them into black and white personalities. ‘In both May Lady and   Under the Skin of the City, a tension is maintained through Beni Etamed’s disinclination to present the stories from a single, fixed viewpoint that would present a clear or coherent statement. She attempts a dissection of historical and present reality, but she rarely reaches the kind of rigid conclusions that one would expect from this forensic approach. Instead, the various events are presented from several social and economic angles, leaving any final resolution and interpretation to the viewer’ (Sadr, 2006). Abbas may be perceived as a man inclined to crime, but he does it in order to save his family. The father is weak and useless, yet he loves his wife and his family unconditionally. This way the audiences instead of judging find a level of identification and compassion. Ohad Landesman writes about Kiarostami saying that his films: ‘…fulfil the Bazinian esthetic responsibility in its full extremity: observing life without judging it or intervening in its natural flow’ (Landesman, 2006) . The same can be applied to Beni – Etemad and her film. The characters are humans like ourselves and therefore even if drastically different also alike.

When it comes to the style of the film, Beni-Etemad employs contemporary filming techniques that are appreciated by wider audiences. She mixes multiple genres moving from drama to documentary, depicting realism mixed with poetics and also includes certain elements of nostalgia. ‘The collapse of cinematic narrative convention opens up a space and a pace in which the elements of cinematic form acquire visibility in their own right’ (Mulvey, Afterword, 2004). Beni-Etemad uses beautiful visual takes that are enhanced by specific kind of music, added in various ways. Sometimes as a depiction of an emotional state of the characters and sometimes it is the real sound of the city. There is also certain Brechtianism in ‘Under the City’s Skin’, connoted by a conscious use of the camera. As the film starts and ends with the mother talking directly to the camera, interviewed by film makers, we are reminded about the presence of the film maker itself. It is the impression of reality we are witnessing. Yet a reality that may have been censored and therefore is heavily overloaded with symbolism and visual connotations.

When considering ‘Under the City’s Skin’ among the world cinemas, it is crucial to stress the importance of the audiences. Naficy thinks that: ‘Iranian exiles, international audiences and film – reviewing establishments abroad were sophisticated enough to understand the constricted political contexts in which the films where produced’ and ‘…these viewers and reviewers tended to highlight the initiative and skilfulness of the filmmakers’ (Naficy, 2004). That being said, the world audiences differ extensively from the national viewer.  They will connect and identify on an utterly different level, making assumptions from extensively various point of views, taking foremost  into consideration their own background and identity. ‘There are many things in Iranian films which are difficult to fathom for the non-Iranian viewer and are best understood by Iranians, particularly the better educated ones’ (Nejad, 2010). Audiences from Iran or other repressed countries or one troubled by political and social instabilities will connect with the characters and understand their situation comparing them to themselves. One that experienced Communism in East Europe or Militarism in Argentina will better understand the corruption, poverty or Abbas’s actions that forced him to crime. They will not expect those characters to change or suddenly win a lottery, but they will understand more clearly their emotional inner struggles. Also the figure of the ‘uber mother’ is very much present in most of the underdeveloped countries. It is a mother that is everything and sacrifices herself utterly to the needs of her family. In case of Beni-Etemad’s film, the mother is portrayed as a struggling force, filled with an unconditional love, never ceasing to fight back.

Nevertheless the involvement of western audiences is also present and possible. ‘Foreigners, or those who lack the necessary language, therefore, cannot hope to understand the film thoroughly. But while this might reduce the film’s political significance and flatten the nuances, the kind of problems it addresses is comprehensible, even of on an intuitive rather than an informal level’ (Mulvey, Afterword, 2004). Especially in films like ‘Under the City’s Skin’, the portrayal of the family and its struggles awake an interest and sympathy for the positively represented characters. It is not merely the tourist gaze searching for exotic values. The audiences wish for Abbas to succeed. To get the visa, earn money for his family and get the girl he is in love with. The viewer worries about the tired mother and sympathises with her never ending strength to carry on. Also in every family there are teenagers like Abbas’s sister and brother, who want to change the world. The only difference is that it is not the next door neighbour.

Also within the narrative there is a feeling of dislocation, especially present in characters of Abbas and his brother and sister. ‘Dislocation (journeys, searches, homelessness, exile) is a major theme in Iranian films’ (Tapper, 2002). In ‘Under the City’s Skin, it is the search for unknown, for the new. The changes in the city, visible by many road works and tall buildings, also connoted by the scene where Abbas is taking his family to the restaurant to eat pizza and drink Coca-Cola, connotes changes towards globalization and standardization, visible not only in Iran but all over the world. Also the old world represented by Abbas’s parents changes rapidly and confuses them. The new generation represented by Abbas’s younger brother and sister wishes to move forward, almost disconnected with the past. Abbas is in a way the link between those two worlds and he is able to understand both, the old and the new realties. Yet by being interlinked with both worlds his identity and consciousness seems to float, not being able to take a stand or find his place within a society.

 Furthermore the level of understanding for the western audience increases with the structure of the narrative that even by mixing different genres still sustains traditional plot, without extreme disconnections or without a sudden change of the story diegesis. The action flows continuously connecting the characters, their stories and their surroundings. The plot has beginning, middle and an end. Even if Beni-Etemad leaves us with an open ending where we are not quite sure what will happen to Abbas, there is a certain traditional breakdown in the action that is well known by the global viewers and accepted as a general story telling technique. The audiences of the world cinema are able, despite national connotations to appreciate the story told and the context within. Yet how much therefore ‘Under the City’s Skin’ is national and how much it is directed towards international audiences?

 Iranian audiences despite the success of their films on international circuit seem to have slightly different approach to their national cinema. It often criticizes the only one sided depiction of the Iranian society by show casting their country from one point of view. The excotic poverty has more appeal for the global audiences than the depiction of middle class or intellectuals. ‘One of the allegations against these films is that they show ‘backwardness, poverty and negative images of Iranian society’ which conform to the stereotype of the country, and that is why they are popular at festivals’ (Nejad, 2010). The visually enhanced films about third world countries existence where children have no future, woman are victimised and men struggle with their identities, succeed and bring rewards. Therefore the Iranian cinema may have been seen as a global marvel, yet is not as much appreciated on national level. ‘Another allegation against art cinema is that Iranian films are ‘primitive in style’ and show Iran as ‘an exotic other’ which allegedly non –Iranians enjoy to see’ (Nejad, 2010). When asked an Iranian friend what she thought about ‘Under the City’s Skin’, she said that she did not watch it, as it is probably again about the poor and depression. The lack of uplifting qualities may appeal to the world audiences yet may this way miss the home box offices. Also there is a question of the type of audiences the film aims for. With its artistic connotations and refined symbolism the films like ‘Under the City’s Skin’ may tell a story about the poor but are clearly aimed towards intellectual Iranians and outside the country towards middle and upper classes. ‘Indeed, as Shahbazi suggests, there are number of elements in all such Iranian films which are much easier to understand for the more educated Iranians’ (Nejad, 2010). Many Iranians admire Beni-Etemad for her contribution to Iranian film and het international stardom, yet how of a home box office success she is, is debatable.

To conclude, Iranian cinema despite the critics and the issues discussed can be clearly allocated within world cinema aesthetics. It is mainly because of the topics addressed, which further on are strongly related to the realism of the human existence. Where Hollywood concentrate on the illusion, feeding the audiences with mass appeal, directors like Beni-Etemad tell stories about humans, that are stripped to their basic emotions, going beyond the closed doors, revealing different kind of world. ‘The distinctive forms and achievements of Iranian cinema, owing little or nothing to Hollywood or Western models (other than the medium itself, and the rewards of international acclaim) have shown that, culturally at least, the fear of ‘Western invasion’ can be dismissed as a chimera’  (Tapper, 2002). Through film festivals all around the world films like that can find its niche and win acceptance among broader audiences. Iranian films win many awards and are fully established on festivals. ‘Festivals devoted to Iranian films multiplied’ (Tapper, 2002). There is even an Iranian film festival in London. ‘Iranian cinema has much to teach the world about poetry, children, emotion and class’ (Tapper, 2002). There may be a critique of the repetitive stories, handling and over using similar styles and films made for the world audiences rather than Iran.  Yet this does not hinder Iranian cinema to win continuous awards and sustain its popularity.

‘Under the City’s Skin’ was positively welcomed by the world wide audiences. It was released in 2001 on many festivals, in countries like UK, France, Italy, Greece, Canada or Argentina. It won among others; a special jury prize at Moscow International Film Festival and at Torino Festival an audience award, best feature film and best script. Beni-Etemad proved again that she can move beyond the factual and emotional boarders. Laura Mulvey writes about the traveling of the films by saying: ‘As films do travel, and will continue to do so, discussion and criticism are essential for them to find a serious place in ‘world cinema’. It is through these means that they can reach beyond the immediacy of fashions or the appeal of the exotically different’ (Mulvey, Afterword, 2004).  It is arguable if ‘Under the City’s Skin’ can entirely abandon the exotic appeal or move beyond the current fashion for Iranian Cinema. Rakhshan Beni-Etemad certainly proves that Iranian film is not only a passing novelty but a niche that clearly sustained its place and can be certainly allocated within the world cinemas. Yet how much is that benefited by the films exotic values and fashion for Islamic voyeurism is questionable.

Having said that, the exotic appeal, rather than disadvantage, can help those productions to establish stronger and competitive markets and therefore extend their distribution possibilities, forcing them beyond the festival crowd. By not being able to experience personally other cultures, the audience from around the world will always see certain exotic and strangeness, even if only partially. ‘Under the City’s Skin’ works on many emotional levels and produces identification values, but one cannot help to observe and marvel by seeing the unknown and different.

Throughout its presence and its existence, the world cinema proved to be acknowledged and appreciated. It may not be able to compete with Hollywood and high budget productions. Yet, in the same time its ‘otherness’ in terms of stylistic notions and original form of expression established films from either underdeveloped countries or one that struggle politically and socially, not only as a piece of information but also as an artistic visual expression. Beni-Etemad in an interview, said, when asked about Iranian filmmaking that have a significant impact on the world: ‘One reason is that probably the international audiences is curious to know about these countries like Iran, or other countries in the region, but more importantly, is that the viewpoint of the Iranian filmmakers on issues is not simply individualistic, they try to put things in a broader perspective and look at human relationships in a different fashion.’  (Joanne Laurier, 2005). Indeed, ‘Under the City’s Skin’ earned its place within world cinemas frame by attracting wide range of audiences, proving that films of a national nature can convey multi-faceted qualities and employ more approachable techniques, without entirely abandoning the cultural connotations or an original form of expression.

Additionally, it determined its place within world cinema by proving that emotional involvement can be reached on many levels. The style of the film, the location, and the topic addressed creates an active viewing experience where the viewer can identify, observe and acknowledge other reality than their own. Having said that many topics addressed in ‘Under the City’s Skin’ are present not only in Iran; the women inequality, the family issues and the globalization are common everywhere else. Also the film raises a question if national cinema works on an international level and further on questions if films like ‘Under the City’s Skin’ are directed more likely towards international markets. As ‘Under the City’s Skin’ was fully acknowledged by film festivals around the world and won significant awards, it certainly found its appeal among worldwide audiences. In case of Beni- Etemad success, it is due to the depiction of Iran and the Iranian people with a mixture of human and exotic. Her filmic style moving from fiction to documentary and real to fantasy opens other ways of viewing experience, which is more active and in a way also interactive. As the characters within the plot change and move with the flow of the new emerging world, the world wide audiences travel with them.

Bibliography

Chanan, M. (2011, May 14). Who’s for ‘world cinema’. Retrieved November 25, 2012, from http://www.mchanan.com

Joanne Laurier, D. W. (2005, October 3). An Interview with Rakhshan Bani-Etemad, co-director of Gilaneh. Retrieved November 12, 2012, from World Socialist Web Site: http://www.wsws.org

Landesman, O. (2006, Summer). In the mix-reality meets fiction in contemporary Iranian cinema. Retrieved November 15, 2012, from A special focus on contemporary Iranian cinema: http://www.direct.bl.uk

Mulvey, L. (1990). Distraction of Pleasure as a Radical Weapon. Retrieved December 2, 2012 , from Universita Degli Studi Di Palermo/PDF Document: http://www.unipa.it

Mulvey, L. (2004). Afterword. In R. T. (ed.), The New Iranian Cinema (pp. 53, 255, 257, 259). London: I.B. Tauris.

Nagib, L. (2011). Realism, Presentation, Represantaion Presetational Ethics . In L. Nagib, World Cinema and the Ethics of Realism (p. 1). London: The Continuum International.

Nejad, S. Z. (2010). Transnational circulation and national perceptions-Art films in the Iranian context. In S. Z. Nejad, The Politics of Iranian Cinema (pp. 128, 142, 153, 156). Oxon: Routledge.

Sadr, H. R. (2006). The 1990′s . In H. R. Sadr, Iranian cinema – a political history (pp. 252, 260). London: I.B. Tauris.

Tapper, R. (2002). Introduction. In R. Tapper, The New Iranian Cinema (pp. 2, 4, 9, 16, 20 ). London: I.D. Tauris.

Filmography

Etemad, R. B. (Director). (2001). Under the Skin of the City [Motion Picture].

Etemad, R. B. (Director). (1999). The May Lady [Motion Picture].

Kiarostami, A. (Director). (2002). Ten [Motion Picture].

Makhmalbaf, H. (Director). (2003). The Joy of Madness [Motion Picture].

Panahi J. (Director). (2000). The Circle [Motion Picture].

Makhmalbaf S. (Director). (1998). The Apple [Motion Picture].

Via Ulla Fudge's Blog

From Kiarostami to Panahi: The spellbinding films of Iran

The following article is based on a reproduction of a piece by Vaibhav Vats from 2009, published in the op-ed pages of the Indian Express. It was written at the height of the Green Movement; often politics does lead to the production of spellbinding art.



Through an astute lens

As the crisis in Iran escalates, the pictures of protests and unrest would not have surprised those who follow Iranian cinema closely. Since the 1979 revolution, Iranian cinema has developed a subtle language of dissent, circumnavigating the dreaded censors of the Ministry of Islamic Guidance and Culture and holding a mirror to the country’s fissures. Film critic Godfrey Cheshire wrote in Newsweek, “Iranian films show us a society struggling with itself, trying to reconcile cultural traditions with political choices, vaunted ideals with thorny realities.”

The most visible struggle, for those of us who view Iran from the outside, is the issue of women’s rights. Samira Makhmalbaf’s The Apple, a film about the forced confinement of two women, and Jafar Panahi’s Offside, which trained its lens on the exclusion of women from football stadiums, are among several such acclaimed films.

But to understand how Iranian cinema articulates its political protest, Abbas Kiarostami’s Ten is particularly revealing. In the film, a dashboard cam eavesdrops on a divorcee’s impromptu conversations with fellow passengers in car journeys across Tehran which bring Iran’s sexual and social policies into sharp focus. In one scene, a camera focusses on a character as she scratches wildly around her hijab in the summer heat. In another, the veil drops in a moment of catharsis but is quickly put back on — Kiarostami has made his point by showing us the exhilaration of the unlocked genie. In an environment where dialogue can swiftly be clamped down upon, Iranian cinema has mastered the art of subversive suggestion, without leaving any footprints.

The picture of Tehran that has emerged in recent days has been that of a city divided — the pro-Moussavi supporters who have crowded the elite, affluent neighbourhoods in the capital’s north distinctly separate from the poorer neighbourhoods in the city’s south where support for incumbent president Ahmadinejad is strong.

In a country where one-fifth of the population accounts for 45 per cent of the household income, the class divisions point to irreconcilable narratives. Iran’s cinema has observed the chasms that separate the westernised elite and the middle classes, who long for greater freedoms and a secular state, and their poorer fellow citizens, who support religion’s primal defining role.

Jafar Panahi’s Crimson Gold is the tale of an overweight pizza delivery boy who, in encounters with Tehran’s wealthy classes, realises his inability to transcend his social class. Majid Majidi’s The Song of Sparrows takes this even further — portraying the working classes as powerless and inconsequential, he shows the primal role of religion as a form of social glue that gives them a sense of community and belonging.

What gives Iranian cinema its significant political weight is how often its films blur the distinctions between fiction and documentary. Solely relying on dialogue and minimal use of supporting narrative devices like background music, Iranian cinema regularly comes up with genre-defying films —Ten and The Apple being two examples — impossible to determine whether their realm is fiction or non-fiction.

At other times, they can be remarkably prescient. In 1997, Kiarostami’s most celebrated film, Taste of Cherry, won the Palme d’Or at Cannes in the same week that an assertive electorate chose reformist intellectual Mohammad Khatami as president. Taste of Cherry, the tale of a nihilist who drives on the outskirts of Tehran looking for an accomplice to complete a task after he commits suicide, was distinctly at odds with the euphoric mood in Iran at the time. However, reformist hopes withered away as hardliners prevailed, leading to an environment of frustration and failure similar to the predicament of the protagonist.

But its role as an instrument against authoritarianism retains primacy. In his book, Close Up Iranian Cinema: Past, Present and Future, Hamid Dabashi has written, “In the cinema, we were re-born as global citizens in defiance of the tyranny of the time and the isolation of the space that sought to confine us. In cinema, everything was possible, and in that possibility we defied our paralysing limitations. The cinema revealed our hidden hopes as nation.”

Armed with the radical fervour of artists under siege, Iran’s filmmakers have created a searing chronicle of a fascinating and complex society — its tenuous social fabric, the weight of history, the arduous battle between tradition and modernity — as it charts its way forward in the modern world.

Via Columbia Blogs