Reading Lolita in Tehran, Based on Azar Nafisi’s Memoir

In Nabokov’s novel, Lolita is systematically groomed and exploited by Humbert Humbert, whereas both film adaptations portray her more as a much older instigating coquette. Azar Nafisi and her English literature students identify with the Lolita of the novel. Of course, studying English literature (or any truly humanistic literature) is not easy during the days following the Islamic Revolution and it grows steadily more difficult as the regime entrenches itself in Eran Riklis’s Reading Lolita in Tehran, based on Azar Nafisi’s memoir, which opens tomorrow in theaters.

As liberals in exile, Nafisi and her husband Bijan understood returning to Iran after the Revolution entailed risks, but they believed they could help shape their country’s future. However, she soon realizes conditions are already worse than she imagined and steadily growing even more restrictive for women. Her husband seems to understand that on an intellectual level, but like many Iranian men, he underestimates or ignores the emotional toll of his wife’s loss of agency.

Her career as an English language professor also suffers. First, she must contend with disruptive Islamist students who employ tactics reminiscent of the Cultural Revolution’s Red Cadres. Soon, she is forced to wear the hajib. Eventually, the erosion of her academic freedoms makes it impossible to work at the university level in any meaningful way. However, she never stops teaching.

Instead, Nafisi secretly tutors small groups of students in her private flat. These sessions function sort of like early book clubs, but there is more to them than that. They are a means for the participants to maintain some sort of meaningful intellectual activity and carve out a supportive female only space in an increasingly misogynistic society.

Rather cleverly, Nafisi associates each section of her memoir with a key text and its corresponding principle female characters, drawing parallels between them and the events unfolding around her. The film starts with The Great Gatsby and the tension between love and money. Most of her students consider Daisy Buchanan merely a luxury commodity to possess (in a revealingly hypocritical way) and a symptom of decadent American capitalism, instead of the ideal of love Gatsby can never attain.

Similarly, Daisy Miller is a scandalous figure, because of her honesty and her defiance of polite society’s hypocrisy. The way Jane Austen captures rigid social structures and rituals mirrors the coded language and subtle deceptions that allow them to navigate the regime’s intrusive restrictions on their daily lives. Of course, Lolita directly speaks to the way the Islamic Republic infantilizes and sexualizes women.

The adaptation co-written by Riklis and Marjorie David is just as literate and elegiac as you would hope and expect. This is a mournful film that pays tribute to lost freedom, suppressed culture, and stolen lives. Yet, it is never polemic. Instead, it is deeply personal and meditative.

Riklis’s Spider in the Web

For years, Israel has tried to alert the world to the threat Syria poses to human rights and regional stability. They ought to know, since they have been attacked by Syria in numerous wars (the Arab-Israeli, Six-Day, Yom Kippur, War of Attrition, etc.). However, the world only started to protest when the Assad regime employed chemical weapons against its own people. We were warned—and Adereth, a veteran Israeli spy did a lot of the warning. He hopes to expose a Euro chemical company’s links to the terrorist-sponsoring nation in Eran Riklis’s English language production Spider in the Web, which opens today in Los Angeles.

Admittedly, Adereth is not the best representative of Syria hawks. For years, he has been “sexing up” the meager intel supplied by a formerly high-ranking Syria defector, to justify the continuing stream of payments to him and also to protect his own position. Just as the Mossad launches an internal investigation into his handling of Nader Khadir, his old friend passes along something urgent and actionable: details on the Virobe company’s dealings with the Syrian government.

Facing the likely prospect of prosecution, Adereth scrambles to mount an operation to obtain proof against Virobe. He going under cover as an environmental activist, he seduces Angela Caroni, an executive who might also have a social conscience. Daniel, the son of his late partner will serve as his back-up, but he is also there to keep Adereth in line and make sure he eventually faces the music, if he survives.

In terms of tone, Web is somewhat similar to Fred Schepsi’s The Russia House, in which smoldering seduction and elegiac catharsis trumped the espionage business. Sir Ben Kingsley romancing Monica Bellucci also parallels the Sean Connery-Michelle Pfeiffer sexual dynamic, but in this case, there are probably fewer years separating the lovers.

In fact, it is rather refreshing to see a complex relationship between mature adult lovers on screen, even if it is all undercover play-acting—or is it? Regardless, Kingsley and Bellucci generate a great deal of heat together, but the tension and rapport he shares with Daniel is even more compelling. As Daniel, Itay Tiran is quite the quiet cat, but he expresses a lot. Plus, Itzik Cohen adds some grit and color as the pear-shaped but hard-nosed Mossad boss, Samuel. It is a good thing the inter-personal stuff works so well, because screenwriters Gidon Maron & Emmanuel Naccache’s actual espionage plotting is frustratingly elliptical and excessively complicated.

Nevertheless, it is a treat to watch a somewhat unlikely pairing of two charismatic professionals, like Kingsley and Bellucci. Despite the somewhat le Carré-esque tone, the film also delivers a timely warning regarding Syria’s support for terrorism and its dismal human rights record. It is not quite as stylish and suspenseful as Riklis’s own Shelter, but it is still a solid international thriller. Recommended for fans of spy movies and the prestigious co-leads, Spider in the Web opens today (8/30) in LA, at the Laemmle Music Hall.

Eran Riklis’s Shelter

It is impossible to claim the civilized world is winning the war on terrorism when Hezbollah is part of Lebanon’s ruling coalition. Frankly, most of the West now follows the “Obama Doctrine:” go easy on Hezbollah to curry favor with their Iranian masters. Israel still fights the good fight and it will continue to protect those who fought with them. Mona is a particularly sensitive example. As the ex-mistress of a high-ranking Hezbollah terrorist/Lebanese government official, she provided extensive intelligence to the Mossad. When she was exposed, her handlers smuggled her out of the country and into a Hamburg safe house. It will be Naomi’s task to protect her while she recovers from plastic surgery, but her assignment will be considerably more dangerous than promised in Eran Riklis’s Shelter (trailer here), which opens this Friday in Los Angeles.

This will be Naomi’s first field work since a devastating personal tragedy caused her to take an extended leave of absence. It is supposed to be an easy way to get back into action, so initially, she is not even supplied a gun. It will be her job to masquerade as a nurse, tending to the bandaged Mona while she recuperates from plastic surgery. Eventually, she will be resettled into a new life, with a new identity. Yet, there are things Mona has trouble letting go, like the son still held in the custody of her very former lover, Naim Quassem.

Of course, there is friction between the two women at first, but respect and eventually friendship slowly but steadily develops between them. Not surprisingly, it turns out Quassem still holds a grudge against Mona. Quelle surprise. As Mona bonds with her charge, her instincts become hyper-aware of the danger swirling around them.

If you want to understand why the Mossad is the most successful intelligence agency in the world, watch Shelter. They protect their assets instead of burning them. In contrast, the German BND comes off looking pretty bad and it is rather clear our agencies would not have acted much differently. Riklis’s handling of Mona’s motivation for working with the Israelis is also smart and satisfying—it is deeply complex, yet profoundly simple.

It should be noted Riklis has bent over backwards to be sensitive to the circumstances of Arab Israeli women (who chose to political identify with the era of the British Mandate of “Palestine”) in previous films, such as The Lemon Tree. Indeed, empathizing with a strong Middle Eastern woman like Mona necessarily involves a critical rejection of militant terrorists like Hezbollah.

Israeli Neta Riskin and the Iranian-born, Paris-based Golshifteh Farahani (who has obviously given up all hope of returning home until there is a decisive regime change) are quite extraordinary together. Riskin is icily reserved, but clearly conveys how wounded and vulnerable Naomi is inside. Frankly, Farahani’s performance is genuinely brave in many ways. Arguably, she is just as fragile (if not more so), yet she vamps up the silk robe and surgical bandages better than even Bette Davis could have in her prime.

With its main characters confined to the claustrophobic flat, Shelter definitely shares a kinship with the classic films of Hitchcock and Polanski, but it engages with wider geopolitical issues. Frustratingly, it is likely to be overshadowed by Brad Anderson’s Beirut, but it is a vastly superior film. In fact, it is the best espionage-counter-terrorism film of the year thus far, and Riklis’s best since The Human Resources Manager. Very highly recommended, Shelter opens this Friday (4/6) in LA, at the Laemmle Town Center 5, Monica Film Center, and Ahrya Fine Arts.

Zaytoun: Olive Branches Come from Olive Trees

A captured Israeli air force pilot and a Beirut street urchin have one thing in common.  They would both much rather be in Israel.  They just have different names for it.  Yes, the presumed enemies will form a significant alliance in Eran Riklis’s Zaytoun (trailer here), which opens today in New York.

In 1982, the PLO capitalized on the civil war raging across Lebanon, using the nearly failed state as a staging ground to launch rocket attacks into Israel.  Much to world’s shock and dismay, Israel decided to defend herself.  Unfortunately, one pilot will be coming home the hard way.  Shot down and captured, Yoni will be beaten and tortured before the PLO trades him for a bulk quantity of their terrorists imprisoned in Israel.  Young Fahed is one of his most rabid tormentors.  A cigarette hawker and occasional pupil of the PLO’s “terrorist school,” Fayed has bought into the propaganda he has spent his life submersed in.

However, the call of his ancestral homeland and a filial obligation to plant his late father’s olive tree sampling in said land compel Fahed to make a deal with Yoni.  He will help the battered and bloodied pilot escape in exchange for entrée into Israel.  Initially, they are still openly hostile to each other, but an uneasy friendship develops as they work together to evade the trigger-happy Syrians (yes, one can well imagine that would be a bonding experience).

Obviously, Zaytoun is the sort of movie where the leads learn they are not so different from each other, but the supporting characters all hail from central stereotype casting. Yet, despite the very particular geo-political context, Zaytoun is surprisingly even-handed.  Frankly, it does absolutely nothing to burnish the PLO’s image, mostly portraying them as a band of thugs.  Granted, it never really explains the sort of onslaught Israel faced, but the film would be better described as simplistic rather than didactic.  Basically, Nader Rizq’s screenplay seems to suggest even the gravest of enemies can find common ground if forced to schlep an olive tree through an urban battlefield together.

The non-Israeli Stephen Dorff is completely convincing as the gruff but sensitive Yoni, looking a bit like Kiefer Sutherland in 24 (and that’s not a bad thing).  Likewise, Abdallah El Akal is also believably petulant as Fahed, nicely conveying the stop-and-start maturation his character undergoes.

This is not the film that will turn the world’s swords into ploughshares, but it works rather well on the micro-level because the central relationship is so surprisingly compelling. Although it is not nearly as moving as Riklis’s first-rate Human Resources Manager, it is about as good as peacenik cinema gets.  Recommended for fans of Israeli cinema and Dorff, Zaytoun opens today (9/20) in New York at the Village East.