Panahi’s It was Just an Accident

Their relationship was so “intimate,” Vahid could recognize him by his smell and the sound of his walking gait. He was a prison torturer and Vahid was one of his many victims. Frankly, he never saw his tormentor’s face, but when they suddenly cross paths, all Vahid’s traumatic memories come rushing back to him. However, he wants 100% confirmation before taking the final step towards vengeance in Jafar Panahi’s Cannes Palme d’Or-winning It was Just an Accident, which opens today in New York.

Driving home with his pregnant wife and young daughter, Eghbal accidentally hits a stray dog (dogs have it rough in Islamist Iran). Shortly thereafter, their car starts sputtering, but Eghbal manages to coast to Vahid’s garage, where his co-worker gives the engine a temporary patch-up job. However, Vahid remains in the shadows, because hearing the man’s voice and squeaky prosthetic leg makes his blood run cold.

Overcome with rage, Vahid follows Eghbal home and continues stalking him. Soon, he strikes, abducting his former torturer—at least Vahid is ninetysome percent sure Eghbal is the man who terrorized him night after night. He is ready to bury the regime loyalist in the desert, but he wants to be completely certain, so he visits Shiva, a photographer friend of a mutual dissident friend, who also suffered at the hands of the interrogator with the artificial limb. She remembers the feel of the leg, because he often made her touch it (yuck, in the most believably disturbing way), but she never saw his face either.

When Shiva’s client, Goli learns why Shiva is so distracted by the contents of Vahid’s van, she insists on seeing Eghbal for herself, because she was also a victim. Yet, again, she cannot ID him with absolute certainty. Without changing from her wedding gown, she and her groom, Ali, join Vahid and Shiva, in search of Hamid, a further member of their imprisoned circle. However, Hamid’s ordeal left him with anger management issues bordering on mild psychosis. He will not be a stabilizing addition to their party.

Without question, this is one of the best films of Panahi’s accomplished career. In some ways, it brings to mind Death and the Maiden, but it is much more than that. This is a deeply humanistic film with a surprisingly absurdist streak. Vahid’s ever-growing carpool would almost bring to mind It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World, if the subject of their quest was not so grimly serious. Indeed, this film is shocking one moment, funny the next, and then deeply unsettling. Yet, there is never any feeling of whiplash. Under Panahi’s sure hand, viewers understand this is what it is like to live in contemporary Iran.

The tremendous range and flexibility of the cast is a major reason why the constantly shifting gears come across so smoothly for the audience. They obviously appreciate the dire stakes and the simultaneously bizarre absurdism of their characters’ situation. Accident ought to win awards for best cast, but it won’t, because that would take guts.

Jafar Panahi’s No Bears

Jafar Panahi secretly finished his latest feature in May 2022. Two months later, he was arrested again, after speaking out against the imprisonment of his fellow filmmakers, Mohammad Rasoulof and Mustafa Al-Ahmad. Over the next few months, Joe Biden shamefully responded by trying to revive the so-called “Iranian Nuclear Deal,” potentially releasing billions of dollars in frozen Iranian assets. We can only wish our government understood the Iranian regime as well as filmmakers like Panahi and Rasoulof. Once again, Panahi serves up some trenchant criticism of contemporary Iranian society, but with usual compassionate humanism in No Bears, which opens tomorrow in New York.

This time around, Panahi is surprisingly meta, both with No Bears in itself and the film he is making within the film. The pseudo-fictional Panahi is similarly banned from filmmaking in Iranian, but he is directing a new film shoot in Turkey over Skype. The meta film chronicles the frustrations of an Iranian dissident couple, attempting to arrange transit to continental Europe. However, unbeknownst to his lead actress Zara, her on- and off-screen partner Bakhtiyar’s dealings with Turkish underground passport brokers are actually genuine, recorded documentary-style by Panahi’s assistant director Reza.

To feel “close” to the action, Panahi has rented a cottage in a hardscrabble Iranian border town. Of course, the villagers do not recognize Panahi, but they can sense there is something secretive about him. Nevertheless, they show the deference they believe is due to a man of his apparent education and class. However, their hospitality turns frosty when Panahi unwittingly lands in the middle of a potential family feud.

Apparently, the family of Gozbal, a local young woman, is pressuring her to marry the man she was promised to at birth, even though she loves Soldooz, a former student who was expelled for participating in democratic protests. Everyone except Panahi is convinced he accidentally took a picture of Gozbal’s secret rendezvous with Soldooz, so he is constantly harassed by the aggrieved family and the village chief for the proof. The more Panahi denies, the less polite they get.

Even if Panahi had not already been arrested for expressing solidarity with his colleagues, No Bears (the title refers to the bogus reports of wild animals intended to keep the villagers home at night) could have just as easily landed him behind bars again. There are at least three reasons it would enrage the mullahs, starting with the unflattering depiction of the traditionally Islamic, yet superstitious villagers. It also explores the painful experiences of asylum seekers, like Zara and Bakhtiyar. Seeing the former serving beers as a waitress in a Turkish border town tavern would not help either. However, the biggest issue would probably be Panahi’s continued resourcefulness defying their filmmaking ban.

It is also his best film since Taxi—maybe even his best film since Offside. Sometimes meta-ness produces a hollow, over-intellectualized viewing experience, but in this case, it deepens the drama and the resonance. This might be a “fictional” film, but it is clearly very real in the mindsets and realities it depicts.

The Year of the Everlasting Storm, from Jafar Panahi and Others

Good news Jafar Panahi’s pet iguana Iggy is still living happily in his Tehran flat. We last saw Iggy in Panahi’s This is Not a Film, the banned Iranian filmmaker’s secretly produced film documenting his life under house arrest. Since then, Panahi’s digital minimalist approach to filmmaking became a model for filmmakers stuck inside during Covid lock-downs, so he was naturally recruited as an executive producer and a contributor to the quarantine-themed anthology, The Year of the Everlasting Storm, which opens today in New York.

To a large extent, Panahi’s “Life” effectively functions as a sequel to This is Not a Film, since it shares the same setting and straight-forward documentary approach. Arguably, it is the lightest-weight of Panahi’s films, but the appealing personalities of the Panahi family make it a pleasant viewing experience. More than anything, it is about the family’s efforts to keep in touch during the CCP pandemic. He also rather remarkably ends it on an upbeat note, which radically distinguishes it from the rest of the anthology’s constituent films.

In contrast, Singaporean filmmaker Anthony Chen’s “The Break Away” dramatizes the tensions and frictions that develop when families are confined with each other. Zhou Dongyu and Zhang Yu portray parents locked-down in Tongzhou, China, who are quickly beset by financial pressures and regular couples’ issues. By now, it represents a familiar looking pandemic drama, but it is well played and executed.

Malik Vittal’s “Little Measures” is essentially an extended news report documenting a family separated during the Covid era, for non-Covid reasons, dressed up with some hip graphics. It is well-intentioned, but not very substantial.

For better or worse, Laura Poitras’s “Terror Contagion” certainly sticks out from the rest of the film, like a sore-thumb. The helmer of Citizenfour spent a good deal of her lockdown trying to dig up dirt on the Israeli spyware firm NSO, with her colleagues in the muckraking collective, Forensic Architecture.

They claim to trace NSO’s fingerprints over all sorts of hacking and surveillance, but strictly speaking, they do not present any proof. Perhaps most notably, they claim NSO is complicit in the Saudi assassination of Jamal Khashoggi. If that is true, think about the implications: Saudi government elements working in concert with an Israeli company. Maybe there’s hope for peace in the Middle East after all.

Yet, Poitras and her colleagues make some points a lot of viewers might not want to hear. They discovered NSO has repurposed their software and pitched it to local governments for the purpose of contact tracing. The truth is the pandemic’s potential to erode civil liberties is truly terrifying. Perversely, the ACLU just endorsed vaccine mandates, as “a justifiable intrusion on autonomy and bodily integrity.” At this point, how likely are they to object if state and local government starts contracting NSO’s contact-tracing services? Hopefully, Poitras and company would, which makes “Terror Contagion” valuable just for raising such issues. They just should have made a real case, instead of assuming viewers would take their word for it.

Panahi’s 3 Faces

It rather makes sense banned Iranian filmmaker Jafar Panahi would be drawn to films shot in cars, because he might need to make a speedy escape during production. This is his fourth film he has completed and released internationally since the Iranian film authorities formally prohibited him from pursuing his chosen art and professional vocation, following up the similarly auto-centric Tehran Taxi. This time, Panahi, appearing as a meta-version of himself, takes a road trip to Iran’s mountainous Turkish-speaking Azeri region in 3 Faces, which opens this Friday in New York.

Apparently, social media is just as problematic in Iran, as it is in the West, judging from the suicide video sent to famous screen thesp Behnaz Jafari, played by herself. According to the video, Marziyeh Rezaei killed herself, because her family forced her to give up her acting ambitions and Jafari had refused to respond to any of her pleas for help. Jafari insists she never received any messages from the young girl, which seems plausible, considering the video was sent to Panahi, on her behalf.

Reluctantly, Panahi is driving Jafari to Rezaei’s Azeri village to either verify or debunk the videotape. He would prefer to stay clear of the mess, but his moderating influence will probably be helpful. Much to his dismay, Jafari has been reacting more out of anger for the embarrassment and inconvenience of the kerfuffle than compassion for Rezaei’s plight.

The title is a not-so obvious reference to three actresses, at very different stages of their careers. Jafari is famous, so she is welcomed by the village with open arms. On the other hand, Rezaei’s ambitions are treated as a source of family shame by her father and boorish brother. However, she probably has it easy compared to the unseen Shahrzad, a once-popular star of pre-Revolutionary Iranian cinema, who has been scorned and harassed by the villagers since her arrival. There are also three kindred spirits in the film, who have been prohibited from pursuing their cinematic callings, with Panahi replacing Jafari.

The mere fact that 3 Faces exists at all is cause for celebration. It has also already played a small part in cinema history, because Asghar Farhadi spoke out unequivocally against Panahi’s travel ban, when he appeared at Cannes, which was screening his latest film, as well as 3 Faces. Ironically, of Panahi’s post-ban films, 3F is probably the slightest thematically and the least concerned with social commentary, even though it is the most traditionally movie-like. Nevertheless, there is still something acutely compelling about Panahi’s humanistic response to the troubles of Rezaei and the one-named Shahrzad. As in This is Not a Film and Taxi, Panahi is a mature, reassuring, and affectionately awkward presence, like a dissident dad-figure.

Panahi’s shaggy charisma continues to wear well over time, but it is Jafari who really takes possession of the film. She is sly and caustic at first, but she also makes the most of her rewarding meta-character development arc. In many ways, Jafari is a diva, but she still develops some surprisingly arch comedic rapport with Panahi.

Even a relatively minor Panahi film is cause for celebration. 3 Faces is also a graceful tribute women thesps and filmmakers, who risk much to express themselves creatively in Islamist Iran, as well as a subtle homage to Panahi’s former mentor and collaborator, Abbas Kiarostami (the echoes of Kiarostami’s Close-Up are especially pronounced). Highly recommended, 3 Faces opens this Friday (3/8) in New York, at the IFC Center.

Jafar Panahi’s Taxi

Dissident filmmaker Jafar Panahi sort of brought the Taxicab Confessions concept to Iran, but most of the sins that need atoning are those of the Islamist government. The idea of Panahi working as a cabbie might sound appalling, but it makes sense as a cover for his defiant underground filmmaking. Cabs are a common sight on the streets of Tehran and they also have the advantage of being a moving target. Frankly, nobody is really sure how scripted it is, but each fare he picks up is significant in Jafar Panahi’s Taxi (trailer here), which opens this Friday in New York at the IFC Center.

As the third film Panahi has made since being banned from filmmaking, Taxi is quite an accomplishment just for existing. Although his post-ban films are very self-referential by necessity, Panahi has yet to repeat himself. In this case, he appears to be making a hidden camera documentary about the average citizens who hail his cab, but some of the dialogue is so on the nose calling out his situation and echoing his previous films, it sounds suspiciously hybridized. Of course, on a more general level, the film itself can easily be interpreted as an homage to Abbas Kiarostami’s dash-cam taxi drama, Ten.

Some of Panahi’s “fares” recognize him, while some do not, but they all have something to say. His first two unrelated fares (picking up multiple hails is a standard practice in Tehran) argue about Sharia Law. She is appalled by the public executions, but he seems to think they serve a constructive role controlling society. His job? Mugger.

The third ride-sharer avoids political arguments, eventually revealing himself to be a bootleg hawker. Even Panahi has used his services in the past, because how else would he see Once Upon a Time in Anatolia? He is eager to sell the taxi-driving auteur on a sleazy “Panahi Recommends” bootleg scheme, but the director will not bite. We take it Panahi met plenty would-be exploiters of his ilk during his periods of house arrest. However, things start to really get serious when Panahi is flagged by an accident victim and his wife. During the brief trip to the hospital, they desperately try to hash out some sort of legal arrangement that would not leave her destitute should he die, since Iranian wives do not have inheritance rights under law.

In This is Not a Film, Panahi’s docu-essay capturing the frustration of his time serving the house arrest sentence, he was somewhat upstaged by his pet iguana Igy. However, he never stands a chance once his niece Hana steps in the cab. She has natural comic timing and a flair for delivering dialogue with a mischievous twist. If her scenes were extemporized than Heaven help her parents. Obviously, Panahi thinks she is the bee’s knees, even when she is delivering the heaviest commentary of the film. As part of a class assignment she is tasked with filming a “distributable” film. However, her teacher has given her a long list of absurd restrictions. Panahi knows them well.

Moments like that risk coming across as rather didactic, but Panahi maintains a street-level vitality that makes everything sound fresh and realistic. Beyond Hana, the movie-star in the making, his entire cast of “participants” always keep the film down-to-earth and the energy level cranked up. It would be nice to associate names with our praise, but they remain deliberately unidentified, for their protection.

As one would expect, the reality of Panahi’s situation is reflected in every minute of Taxi, by the secretive nature of its production. Still, he does not force his points, preferring to tease out a critique of current Iranian government and society over time. It is a clever and engaging film that would screen well in dialogue with Sanaz Azari’s criminally under-programmed I for Iran. Frustrating in its honesty, yet strangely satisfying for its resiliency, Jafar Panahi’s Taxi is very highly recommended for everyone who values free expression when it opens this Friday (10/2) at the IFC Center.

TIFF ’13: Closed Curtain

For most filmmakers of his stature, bringing two films to the international festival circuit over the last three years would be considered reasonably prolific. For Jafar Panahi, who was sentenced to a twenty year filmmaking ban by the Islamist Iranian government, it is quite extraordinary.  Panahi has been awarded the Camera d’Or at Cannes, the Silver Bear for Best Director at Berlin, and the Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought.  Although he was not allowed to return to Berlin this year, he added to his list of accolades the Silver Bear for Best Script with his latest film, Closed Curtain (trailer here), co-directed by lead actor Kambozia Partovi, which screens again tomorrow as part of the 2013 Toronto International Film Festival.

A man arrives in a fashionable villa on the Caspian Sea.  The views are spectacular, but he immediately hangs heavy black fabric over the gauzy curtains, completely sealing the house off from the outside world’s prying eyes.  As a screenwriter and a dog owner, he has two strikes going against him.  Initially, he seems most concerned about Boy, his four legged companion.  The state just renewed its campaign against “unclean” “anti-Muslim” dogs, so the television news is filled with grisly images of secret pets that have been rounded up and killed by the police.  Yet, the screenwriter seems to carry his own distinctly personal secrets as well.

After shaving his head to alter his appearance, the man settles in to write his screenplay.  Much to his shock, his refuge is interrupted by a young man and his suicidal sister.  They claim they were chased by the police who raided their beach party, but their very presence troubles the screenwriter.  Could he have been so negligent he left the door open as they claim?

Panahi established his reputation with gritty proletarian dramas, filmed out in the real world, at street level. Sadly, films like The Circle (written by Partovi) are impossible for Panahi these days, so he has moved inside for intimate works, like his protest documentary This is Not a Film and his latest collaboration with Partovi.  In fact, the first two thirds of Curtain plays like an Iranian Pinter production.  As the screenwriter verbally spars with his unexpected guests, darkly unsettling questions emerge.  Just how did they breach his house and if she really is familiar with his case history, just what does that imply?

If viewers were not off-balance enough, Panahi himself walks into the third act, much like Rod Serling.  It seems the screenwriter and the sister are his characters.  They can observe Panahi tending to his mysteriously damaged beach house, but they cannot interact with him—at least not exactly.

There are pro’s and cons to the meta-turn Curtain takes.  In a way, Curtain becomes a fictionalized sequel of sorts to This is not a Film, picking up on its themes and frustrations.  The same sense of claustrophobia is present in Curtain, but it is expressed more acutely.  Frankly, the scenes in which the occupants hold their breath as the police scour around the deceptively darkened house are so effective it seems like a bit of a shame to shift away from that micro story and Partovi’s restrained but deeply powerful performance.

Panahi’s pet iguana Igi might be telegenic in Not a Film, but Boy the Dog is probably the best animal screen performer of the year.  If a distributor picks up Curtain (and somebody really ought to), his notices might rival that of Uggi in The Artist.  Still, there is no doubt Curtain is a profoundly serious film, expressing the themes of confinement and oppression that hold particularly meaning for Panahi, but also have resonance for a great many Iranian citizens at large.  Highly recommended, Closed Curtain screens again tomorrow night (9/15) as this year’s TIFF comes to a conclusion.

Kiarostami at FSLC: Five Dedicated to Ozu

Yasujiro Ozu had a deft touch when it came to directing children.  It would therefore make perfect sense the auteur’s work has deep resonance for Iranian filmmakers.  Yet, it was the Japanese master’s so-called “pillow shots,” brief but peaceful still life transition images, that inspired Abbas Kiarostami’s tribute Five Dedicated to Ozu (clip here), which screens as part of the Film Society of Lincoln Center’s latest retrospective, A Close-Up of Abbas Kiarostami.

Also known as Five Long Takes Dedicated to Yasujiro Ozu (or simply Five), Kiarostami’s homage deliberately eschews narrative and characterization in favor of pure composition.  Having premiered as a museum installation, it is best considered as part of that experimental genre.  Nonetheless, for admirers of Kiarostami and his protégé Jafar Panahi, it carries additional significance as the film the former shot while they were co-writing Panahi’s politically charged Crimson Gold.

Those five long takes show the Caspian Sea, almost entirely from a fixed vantage point.  In the first scene, we watch the tide drag a piece of driftwood back and forth, for a lulling effect.  The following boardwalk scene also features repetitive motion as indistinct pedestrians walk through the camera’s field of vision.  However, viewers might wonder at various times if perhaps Panahi has just made his reported cameo.  While one would think there is nothing conceivably objectionable in Five, the many uncovered female heads in this scene would most likely be problematic in Kiarostami’s native Iran.  Of course, the pace and meditative vibe of Five provides plenty of time for the audience to wonder about such matters.

Considering the third take features dogs—unclean animals according to the ruling mullahs—Five probably has two strikes going against it.  Presenting the frolicking canines as tiny figures on the horizon, it might be Kiarostami’s most interestingly framed shot, closely resembling an ECM album cover.

For kids who love ducks, Five might just be worth having for the fourth take of duckies waddling across the beach.  Without question, they are the most entertaining part of the film.  For the concluding fifth take, it is frogs that are heard but not seen, as the moon rises and glimmers over the dark sea.

When most Ozu fans watch Five, their thoughts will probably wander to what those great films really mean to them.  As pleasant as they might be, his work is not beloved for the pillow shots Kiarostami has so greatly expanded here.  It is the exquisite dignity of Chishu Ryu’s many father figures, Keiko Kishi’s endearing sexuality in Early Spring, and most of all the legendary work of Setsuko Hara.  To see her in the “Noriko” films is to fall head-over-heels madly in love with her.  It is precisely that humanity that is missing from Five.

Regardless, Kiarostami most likely accomplishes what he set out to do with Five, so here it is.  At least it presents an opportunity for viewers to reflect on their respect and affection for the films of Ozu and Panahi, which is something.  Recommended primarily for patrons of the non-narrative avant-garde, Five Dedicated to Ozu screens this Thursday (2/14) at the Walter Reade Theater, as does recent masterwork, the highly recommended Certified Copy starring the incomparable Juliette Binoche, as part of the Close-Up on Abbas Kiarostami career retrospective.

Panahi’s This is Not a Film

The Iranian Islamist regime continues to develop new methods of oppressing its people. Despite international protests, the government upheld Jafar Panahi’s conviction on ill defined thought crimes. However, it has lifted his infamous house arrest as he waits to serve his six year prison term. Ironically, according to those who have spoken with Panahi, he would prefer to start serving his sentence, so he can move forward with his life, but the regime has perversely left him to twist in the wind, banned from filmmaking, prohibited from traveling, and unable to make any long term plans.

Unfortunately, many in the international film community who rallied to Panahi’s cause, have been somewhat deceived by his relative liberty. Meanwhile, Mojtaba Mirtahmasb, Panahi’s collaborator on his latest but hopefully not last film, faces his own set of criminal charges. At least he will have a good idea what to expect. With Panahi, Mirtahmasb co-directed This is Not a Film (trailer here), a documentary record of a day in the life of the award winning filmmaker chafing under house arrest while contemplating his now certain twenty year ban on movie-making, which opens this Friday in New York at Film Forum.

With his doomed appeal still pending, Panahi is confined to his comparatively upscale but not all that spacious Tehran flat on the eve of Persian New Year. Since he cannot make a film, he makes This is Not a Film, with the furtive assistance of Mirtahmasb, a digital video camera, and the odd handheld device.

Considering we are simply watching a man putter about his apartment (with Igi, the scene stealing pet iguana), Not a Film is surprisingly engaging. Even under extreme stress, Panahi is clearly a man of considerable wit and charm (a fact that makes him all the more threatening to the regime). We watch as he blocks out scenes for a film that might never be produced and listen as he cryptically discusses projects with Mirtahmasb in an effort to shield him from presumed eavesdroppers. These are the small grimly fascinating day-to-day realities of artistic repression in Iran. Just in case any of the significance is lost on viewers, the blank closing credits ought to bring it all home.

Not a Film is a quiet film that resolutely avoids anything that might be deemed provocation. Frankly, the circumstances that gave rise to the not-film should never have happened. Yet, since it is here, in its way, Not a Film is an inspiring example of the creative impulse as it flows like water through the cracks of an oppressive state. It is already justly renowned as the film that was smuggled out of Iran in a cake. Indeed, it has probably devastated Iran’s bakery exports.

To give credit where it is due, the international film festival network initially did good work speaking out on Panahi’s plight, but their attention has drifted in recent months. It is also important to remember Panahi’s filmmaker colleagues Mohammad Rasoulof (the director of The White Meadows with whom Panahi was originally charged) and Mirtahmasb, who are just as much prisoners of artistic conscience, but might not have the same name recognition on the world stage. Highly recommended, Not a Film should hopefully kick start such efforts when it opens this Wednesday (2/29) at Film Forum.

NYFF ’11: This is Not a Film

Jafar Panahi will not be appearing at the 49th New York Film Festival. He was never expected. However, it was hoped Mojtaba Mirtahmasb would be able to promote his recent collaboration with Panahi on the international festival circuit. Ominously though, Mirtahmasb’s passport was confiscated just as he was leaving to attend Toronto and he was subsequently arrested, along with five other Iranian filmmakers. At least Mirtahmasb will have a good idea what to expect. With Panahi, he co-directed This is Not a Film (trailer here), a documentary record of a day in life of the award winning filmmaker chafing under house arrest and a prospective twenty year ban on movie-making, which screens at this year’s NYFF.

For those unfamiliar with his story, Panahi and fellow filmmaker Mohammad Rasoulof were sentenced to six years in Iranian prison (a.k.a. Hell on Earth) and prohibited from practicing their art for two decades. With his appeal pending, Panahi is confined to his relatively upscale but not all that spacious Tehran flat on the eve of Persian New Year. Since he cannot make a film, he makes This is Not a Film, with the furtive assistance of Mirtahmasb, a digital video camera, and the odd handheld device.

Considering we are simply watching a man putter about his apartment (with Igi, the scene stealing pet iguana), Not a Film is surprisingly engaging. Even under extreme stress, Panahi is clearly a man of considerable wit and charm. We watch as he blocks out a film that might never be produced and listen as he cryptically discusses projects with Mirtahmasb in an effort to shield him from presumed eavesdroppers. These are the small grimly fascinating day-to-day realities of artistic repression in Iran. Just in case any of the significance is lost on viewers, the blank closing credits ought to bring it all home.

Not a Film is a quiet film that resolutely avoids anything that might be deemed provocation. Frankly, the circumstances that gave rise to the not film should never have happened. Yet, since it is here, in its way, Not a Film is an inspiring example of the creative impulse as it flows like water through the cracks of an oppressive state. Indeed, it is already renowned as the film that was smuggled out of Iran in a cake.

To give credit where it is due, the international film festival network has done good work keeping attention focused on Panahi’s plight. The 2010 Cannes Film Festival pointedly reserved an empty chair for the filmmaker when he was not allowed to attend, even though he was chosen to serve on the jury. Earlier this year in New York, the Asia Society hosted a Panahi retrospective to further publicize his case. However, it is important to remember Rasoulof and now Mirtahmasb as well, who are also prisoners of artistic conscience, but might not have the same name recognition on the world stage. Highly recommended, Not a Film screens this Thursday (10/13) at Alice Tully Hall, as a Main Slate selection of the 2011 New York Film Festival.

NYFF ’11: Sodankyla Forever

A film festival must be pretty secure in itself to program a four and a half hour documentary tribute to another festival. Such is the case with the 49th New York Film Festival. Though not exactly an international launching pad, like Toronto or Cannes, the Midnight Sun Film Festival in Sodankylä, Finland has drawn some of the most admired names in the history of cinema. Festival director Peter von Bagh interviewed many of them on-stage, eventually editing some of their most provocative recollections and insights into the four part documentary, Sodankylä Forever, which has a special two-night screening at this year’s NYFF.

Held in June when the Midsummer sun never sets, the festival might be patrons only opportunity for a brief respite of darkness. However, each day’s line-up begins with an in-depth discussion with a prominent filmmaker. In a way, von Bagh’s Sodankylä is particularly timely and appropriate for this year’s NYFF, because it includes several excerpts of interviews with Iranian filmmaker Jafar Panahi, who obviously will not have the opportunity to participate in Q&A sessions after the screening of his latest film, This Is Not a Film.

Indeed, many world class auteurs sat down with von Bagh, including Wim Wenders and Roger Corman, who are also represented at NYFF, as filmmaker and subject, respectively. Yet, for pure movie fans, the highlight of Sodankylä will be hearing Empire Strikes Back director Irving Kershner discus his initial reaction to a sneak peak at Star Wars (or A New Hope as we are now supposed to call it).

Arguably though, the best material comes from filmmakers who labored under the yoke of Communism. Most notably, Krzysztof Zanussi pointedly criticizes the festival’s special screening of Eisenstein’s Battleship Potemkin, explaining how the ideology it sought to promote caused such profound pain for his country. By the same token, von Bagh deserves credit for putting his comments into the film.

Although an entire segment is essentially devoted to picking desert island films, most of Sodankylä proceeds in a rather idiosyncratic fashion. Von Bagh frequently uses something an interview subject said (or almost nearly said) as a transitional hook into the next auteur, like a game of free association featuring the likes of Sam Fuller, Miloš Forman, Abbas Kiarostami, Claude Chabrol, Jacques Demy, Andrei Konchalovsky, Jerzy Skolimoski (who probably has the best one-liner), and John Boorman (who probably offers the funniest anecdotes).

It is important audiences understand Sodankylä is not That’s Entertainment. Throughout the film, the only film clips von Bagh shows are part of wider audience shots. However, (aside from some rather superficial axe-grinding from John Sayles) the collected reminiscences and commentary are all quite perceptive and engaging. One of the more ambitious screening events at the 49th New York Film Festival, Sodankylä is respectfully recommended for earnest students of cinema. It screens in two installments this coming Tuesday (10/11) and Wednesday (10/12) at the Francesca Beale Theater.

Panahi (Not) at Asia Society: The Circle

It is good to be a man in Iran, provided you do not care about religious, political, or economic liberty. However, women must endure a profoundly misogynistic and frequently brutal society that regards them as little more than the chattel of men. Jafar Panahi confronted the unjustness Iran’s treatment of women directly in The Circle, the winner of the 2000 Venice Film Festival’s Golden Lion, which was promptly banned in Iran. Not content to stop there, the Iranian government has recently barred Panahi from further filmmaking for the next twenty years and sentenced him to six years in prison. Indeed, Panahi’s circumstances only heighten the poignancy of The Circle (trailer here), which screens this Friday as the concluding film of the Asia Society’s retrospective-tribute to the persecuted filmmaker.

Solmaz Gholami (remember that name) has just given birth to a healthy baby girl. This should be happy news, but her mother is distraught. The in-laws were expecting a boy and will surely abandon their daughter-in-law and grand-daughter. The obvious high school science fact that it was the husband who failed to supply the Y chromosome is lost on such medieval fundamentalists. As Gholami’s mother seeks help from her family, Circle peels off, focusing on its next set of characters.

Three women have just been released from prison on unspecified “morals” charges. However, the Iranian system sets them up in a perverse Catch-22, kicking them loose without the necessary identification papers should they be stopped once again by the police (who are definitely out hunting for women in their situation). Lacking a male chaperone, sweet-tempered Nargess cannot take the bus trip back to her provincial home. Despondent, she seeks another friend, Pari, an escapee with even greater problems. She is four months pregnant with the child of her executed lover. From Pari, the chain continues, introducing a desperate mother and a woman arrested as a prostitute (perhaps not without some justification in her case), who ultimately brings the story to its symmetrical conclusion.

Sexism is a wholly insufficient term for the abuses Circle dramatizes. A stinging indictment, but also an honest, frequently moving human drama, it is not hard to see how it ran afoul of the state censors. Yet, the film is not just a testament to Panahi’s artistic integrity. The cast deserves tremendous credit, especially those playing fallen women while living under in a literal-minded fundamentalist theocracy. Though Circle is the only credit listed on IMDB for many of the actresses, their work has a powerful immediacy. They are frighteningly believable. Yet, perhaps most haunting is Nargess Mamizadeh as her namesake. Young and innocent, to paraphrase the tagline of one of Circle’s international posters, she could only be guilty of being a woman.

To be banned by the mullahs might be a greater accolade than the raft of awards Circle won on the international festival circuit. Of course, the repercussions for Panahi have been severe. A truly bold film, Circle has only appreciated in importance and relevance with the regime’s campaign against the filmmaker. Highly recommended, it screens this Friday (3/11) at the Asia Society—and once again, tickets are free.

Panahi (Not) at Asia Society: Crimson Gold

The Iranian government’s record on human rights is certainly lacking, but anything less than a completely equitable distribution of the country’s vast oil revenues must represent the highest form of hypocrisy. Indeed, the Islamic Republic stands so charged in Jafar Panahi’s Crimson Gold, the winner of the Un Certain Regard Jury Prize at the 2003 Cannes Film Festival. Unfortunately, social criticism is a dangerous proposition in Iran. It earned Panahi a six year prison sentence and a twenty-year filmmaking ban. Needless to say, Panahi will not be in attendance when Crimson screens this Friday as part of the Asia Society’s retrospective-tribute to the persecuted filmmaker, but its depiction of a contemporary Iran illiberal in nearly every way, speaks volumes.

There is something profoundly unsettling about Hussein. Though he walks through life in a haze, a little like James Franco at the Oscars, there is a great deal of anger and resentment roiling below the surface. We know right from the start, it is not going to work out for him. Through the circular narrative of celebrated Iranian director Abbas Kiarostami’s screenplay, the audience witnesses the events that drove Hussein to his tragic hold-up attempt.

Hussein and Ali, the brother of his fiancé, work as pizza deliverymen and dabble in a bit of purse-snatching. One otherwise unremarkable purse holds a receipt for an extravagantly expensive necklace. Intrigued, they proceed to the high-end jewelry store out of curiosity, only to be turned away as the low class riffraff they so obviously are. Hussein’s resulting umbrage will be his undoing, eventually leading us back to where the film started, but the getting there will be both oppressively naturalistic and at times surreal.

Hussein is one of the Islamic Republic’s disposable people, a psychologically traumatized Iran-Iraq War veteran living in abject squalor. However, the mobility of his job allows him to observe both the glaring disparity between the have’s and the have-not’s, as well as the morals police at work. Crimson truly captures the absurdity of contemporary Iran when Hussein tries to deliver his pies to a scandalous party featuring verboten dancing between the sexes, only to be waylaid by the cops waiting outside to arrest each sinner as they leave. Yet, one of Crimson’s inconvenient ironies is the rigid fundamentalism of Hussein himself and his desperately poor neighbors.

Reportedly, Hussein Emadeddin was a nonprofessional actor living with paranoid schizophrenia when Panahi cast him as Crimson’s protagonist. Unlike the typical Hollywood-indie portrayal of mental illness, Emadeddin is never showy in the role. All his energy seems to be directed inward rather than outward. Beyond convincing, he is frankly eerie to watch lumbering through the margins of Iranian society—a ticking time-bomb waiting to explode.

In America, it is a compliment to call Crimson a challenging film. In the mullahs’ Iran, it constitutes a prison sentence. A pointed attack on hypocrisy and a somewhat more circumspect critique of Iranian social controls, Crimson is also compelling tragedy, deftly executed by Panahi. Worth seeing as a film in its own right, Crimson is only too timely given the circumstances of its director. Highly recommended, it screens this Friday (3/4) at Asia Society and once again, tickets are free. In addition, the Society will host a panel discussion on Panahi and free expression in Iran (or the lack there of) that will also be simultaneously webcasted at AsiaSociety.org/Live.

Panahi (Not) At Asia Society: Offside

Only the current Iranian regime could make patriotism subversive. Supposedly to protect women from harsh language and rampant testosterone, the paternalistic Iranian regime will not allow women to attend men's sporting events. It may not be the most pressing human rights abuse in Iran, but it emblematic of the Islamic Republic’s institutionalized misogyny. Produced under difficult circumstances without official sanction, Jafar Panhi’s Offside depicts the unfortunate drama surrounding several young Iranian girls’ coordinated attempt to sneak into a crucial World Cup qualifying match. Like several of his characters, Panahi would soon find himself behind bars. Currently facing a six year prison term on trumped-up charges, Panahi is not likely to attend when Offside (trailer here), screens this Saturday at the Asia Society as part of their important retrospective-tribute to the persecuted filmmaker.

Disguising themselves as boys, with varying degrees of success, a group of teen-aged girls successfully bluff their way into the forbidden stadium. Eventually though, they rounded up by the equally young military conscripts working the security detail, to be turned over to the morals police at the end of the match. As the young women cool their heels in a holding pen, they try to engage their captors, who have difficulty defending the policy they reluctantly enforce. In fact, several of the female fans seem much more knowledgeable about the game than the soldiers guarding them.

Since Panahi was (not surprisingly) denied permission to film Offside, he shot rebel-style on digital video, which gives the film a definite cinema vérité look. Panahi’s brave cast of non-professionals duly avoids any sense of affectation. Although some young actors are perhaps a tad uncomfortable in their roles, many, like Shayesteh Irani as the tomboyish “Smoking girl,” are consistently quite good.

As a film Offside is certainly engaging, as a sort of the dystopian version of Bend it Like Backham, but only too real. Yet, it is particularly valuable as an intimate unfiltered snapshot of Iranian life. Far from a full scale indictment of the Iranian regime, Offside is a small, but telling, slice of everyday absurdism. To borrow an American cliché, one cannot use the film to question Panahi’s patriotism. In fact, the film is suffused with a love of country, as the young fans want nothing more than to chant and cheer for their beloved national team.

Reportedly, even though Offside had only been screened once in Iran at the time of its initial American release, word of the film helped temporarily overturn the ban on women at sporting events, until the religious authorities vetoed the policy change. Offside might seem slight—a group of women simply trying to watch a sporting event—but it signifies the act of questioning authority, even ending with a very minor rebellion of sorts, foreshadowing the Green almost-Revolution.

In addition to his six year sentence, the Iranian government has also imposed a twenty year filmmaking ban on Panahi. This punishes not just the filmmaker, but all Iranian citizens and world cineastes. Winner of the Silver Bear at the 2006 Berlin International Film Festival (Berlinale), Offside is an excellent example of what the world is losing through the mullahs’ oppression. It screens this Saturday (2/26) at the Asia Society and tickets are free.

Panahi (Not) At Asia Society: The White Meadows

It is so tragically appropriate that the latest film from unjustly persecuted Iranian film directors Mohammad Rasoulof and Jafar Panahi uses tears as a major plot device, it is almost embarrassing to point out the aptness. However, it is the repressive Iranian government that should be ashamed. It has sentenced both filmmakers to six year prison terms, on the flimsiest of pretexts. To its credit, the recently wrapped Berlin International Film Festival went out of its way to protest their plight, holding Panahi’s invited place on the Berlinale jury vacant, while screening five of his films in various festival sections. Now the Asia Society follows suit with an equally timely retrospective Panahi’s work, starting this Friday with Rasoulof’s The White Meadows, a strange and unsettling cinematic fable edited by Panahi.

The water has never been saltier and the people living on Lake Urmia’s sandy white isles have never been so miserable. A karmic hand seems to be at work. Seeking relief from their sorrow, they turn to Rahmat, a tear collector, who gathers his watery harvest during their funerals, confessions, and inquisitions. However, after leaving one grieving family, Rahmat is surprised to find a stowaway on his small boat, the young Nissim, who has set out on the truly archetypal quest to find his prodigal father.

As Rahmat and his unexpected apprentice travel from one island to another, Meadows subtly grows ever more fantastical and sad. Indeed, its episodic nature seems like a conscious attempt to evoke the spirit of ancient epics like The Odyssey, while keeping its exact time-frame deliberately vague.

Though he functions as an enigmatic journeyman, Hasan Pourshirazi’s Rahmat is still fascinating to watch as he slowly yields up his mysteries. As young Nissim, Younes Ghazali shows talent beyond his years, effectively serving as the audience’s proxy, viscerally and believably expressing horror at the various injustices he witnesses.

Totally absorbing despite its unhurried pace, Meadows is a testament to the filmmaking talents of director Rasoulof and editor Panahi. As lensed by cinematographer Ebrahim Ghafouri, it is a visually stunning film, often utilizing arresting wide angle shots of its black-clad figures, standing out as contrasting specks against the blinding sunlight and Urmia’s eerie white sand and saltwater vistas.

Given the prevalence of tears and suffering in Meadows, it is hard not to read additional meaning into its story. Rasoulof wisely keeps the political allegory largely shrouded (though evidently not obscure enough). Still, there seem to be clear parallels between the bad karma the islanders are suffering and the sins of the Islamic Revolutionary government. Certain critiques of Iranian society are also inescapable, especially its rampant misogyny. Indeed, when a beautiful woman dies terribly young, one Islander tells Rahmat it is for the best, lest she should inspire unfulfilled lust in the men. Also worth noting, Meadows scrupulously adheres to Iran’s stringent regulations forbidding all forms of physical contact between men and women on-screen.

The standout film at last year’s Tribeca Film Festival (worth revisiting for a third time), Meadows is a masterfully crafted work that resists lazy categorization (such as “political allegory” or “Arabian fantasy”). Filmed under difficult circumstances, it is also recommended beyond reasons of its considerable cinematic merits. Clearly, the current Iranian regime would like the outside world to forget Rasoulof, Panahi, and their films. Instead, make a point of attending White Meadows at Asia Society this Friday (2/25) and return for Panahi’s films in the coming days and weeks to enjoy their art, but also remain mindful of their perilous situation.

Global Lens ’11: The White Meadows

It is so tragically appropriate that the latest film from unjustly persecuted Iranian film directors Mohammad Rasoulof and Jafar Panahi uses tears as a major plot device, it is almost embarrassing to point out the obvious aptness. However, it is the repressive Iranian government that should be ashamed. It has sentenced both filmmakers to six year prison terms, on the flimsiest of pretexts. The only remotely good news for Rasoulof and Panahi is the inclusion of their latest collaboration in the 2011 Global Lens traveling film program. Yet, the Museum of Modern Art has been oddly quiet about their upcoming screenings of Rasoulof’s The White Meadows, a strange and unsettling cinematic fable edited by Panahi.

The water has never been saltier and the people living on Lake Urmia’s sandy white isles have never been so miserable. A karmic hand seems to be at work. Seeking relief from their sorrow, they turn to Rahmat, a tear collector, who gathers his watery harvest during their funerals, confessions, and inquisitions. However, after leaving one grieving family, Rahmat is surprised to find a stowaway on his small boat, the young Nissim, who has set out on the truly archetypal quest to find his prodigal father.

As Rahmat and his unexpected apprentice travel from one island to another, Meadows subtly grows ever more fantastical and sad. Indeed, its episodic nature seems like a conscious attempt to evoke the spirit of ancient epics like The Odyssey, while keeping its exact time-frame deliberately vague.

Though he functions as an enigmatic journeyman, Hasan Pourshirazi’s Rahmat is still fascinating to watch as he slowly yields up his mysteries. As young Nissim, Younes Ghazali shows talent beyond his years, effectively serving as the audience’s proxy, expressing perfectly believable horror at the injustices he witnesses.

Totally absorbing despite its unhurried pace, Meadows is a testament to the filmmaking talents of director Rasoulof and editor Panahi. As lensed by cinematographer Ebrahim Ghafouri, it is a visually stunning film, often arrestingly utilizing wide angle shots of its black-clad figures, standing out as contrasting specks against the blinding sunlight and the eerie white sand and saltwater vistas of Urmia.

Given the prevalence of tears and suffering in Meadows, it is hard not to read additional meaning into its story. Rasoulof wisely keeps the political allegory largely shrouded (though evidently not obscure enough). Still, there seem to be clear parallels between the bad karma the islanders are suffering and the sins of the Islamic Revolutionary government. Certain critiques of Iranian society are also inescapable, especially its rampant misogyny. Indeed, when a beautiful woman dies terribly young, one Islander tells Rahmat it is for the best, lest she inspire unfulfilled lust in the men. Also worth noting, Meadows scrupulously adheres to Iran’s stringent regulations forbidding all forms of physical contact between men and women on-screen.

The standout film at last year’s Tribeca Film Festival, Meadows is a masterfully crafted work that resists lazy categorization (such as “political allegory” or “Arabian fantasy”). Filmed under difficult circumstances, it is also recommended beyond reasons of its considerable cinematic merits. Clearly, the current Iranian regime would like the outside world to forget Rasoulof, Panahi, and their films. Instead, go see Meadows as the Global Lens program makes its way across the country and also check out Panahi’s Offside, a spirited film about a group of young women trying to sneak into a soccer game to cheer on the national team, even though their presence is forbidden by Islamist law. Highly recommended, Meadows screens at MoMA tomorrow (1/19) and Saturday (1/22).

Tribeca ’10: The White Meadows

It is so tragically apt that the latest film from unjustly imprisoned Iranian film directors Mohammad Rasoulof and Jafar Panahi uses tears as a major plot device, it is almost embarrassing to point out the obvious irony. However, it is the repressive Iranian government that should be embarrassed. On March 1st, the authorities arrested Rasoulof, Panahi, and group of their friends. Sixteen days later, Rahmat was released, but Panahi remains to this day, held incommunicado in the dungeon-like Evin Prison. Though Panahi’s fate is still in doubt, at least his work can be appreciated freely in the west, along with that of his colleague, Rasoulof. In what ought to be the media event of the 2010 festival, Tribeca will screen Rasoulof’s The White Meadows, a strange and unsettling cinematic fable edited by Panahi.

The water has never been saltier and the people living on Lake Urmia’s sandy white isles have never been so miserable. A karmic hand seems to be at work. Seeking relief from their sorrow, they turn to Rahmat, a tear collector, who gathers his watery harvest during their funerals, confessions, and inquisitions. However, after leaving a grieving family, Rahmat is surprised to find a stowaway on his small boat, the young Nissim, who has set out on the truly archetypal quest to find his prodigal father.

As Rahmat and his unexpected apprentice travel from one island to another, Meadows subtly grows ever more fantastical and ill-fated. Indeed, its episodic nature seems like a conscious attempt to evoke the spirit of ancient epics like The Odyssey, while keeping its exact time-frame deliberately vague.

Though he functions as an enigmatic journeyman, Hasan Pourshirazi’s Rahmat is still fascinating to watch as he slowly yields up his mysteries. As young Nissim, Younes Ghazali shows talent beyond his years, effectively serving as the audience’s proxy, expressing perfectly believable horror at the injustices he witnesses.

Totally absorbing despite its unhurried pace, Meadows is a testament to the filmmaking talents of director Rasoulof and editor Panahi. As filmed by cinematographer Ebrahim Ghafouri, it is a visually dazzling film, often effectively utilizing wide angle shots of its black-clad figures, standing out as contrasting specks against the blinding sunlight and the eerie white sands and saltwater of Urmia.

Given the prevalence of tears and suffering in Meadows, it is hard not to read additional meaning into its story. Frankly though, Rasoulof wisely keeps the political allegory largely obscure. Still, there seem to be clear parallels between the bad karma the islanders are suffering and the sins of the Islamic Revolutionary government. Certain critiques of Iranian society are also inescapable, especially its rampant misogyny. Indeed, when a beautiful woman dies terribly young, one Islander tells Rahmat it is for the best, lest she inspire unfulfilled lust in the men. Also worth noting, Meadows scrupulously adheres to Iran’s stringent regulations forbidding all forms of physical contact between men and women on-screen.

Meadows is a masterfully crafted film that resists lazy categorization (such as “political allegory” or “Arabian fantasy”). Filmed under difficult circumstances, it is also recommended beyond reasons of its cinematic merits. Clearly, the current Iranian regime would like the outside world to forget Rasoulof, Panahi, and their films. Instead, go see White Meadows during Tribeca and check out Panahi’s Offside, a spirited film about a group of young women trying to sneak into a soccer game to cheer on the national team, even though their presence is forbidden by Islamist law. Highly recommended, Meadows screens today (4/23), Monday (4/26), Tuesday (4/27), and Saturday (5/1).