IrFFNY ’19: I Want to Dance

If you dance through the streets of New York, like you are in a vintage MGM musical, you will get a lot of quizzical looks, but people will also appreciate your eccentricity. Not so in Tehran, where the authorities are distinctly unamused by eccentricity and hardliners still maintain a hostile stance towards music in general. However, Bahram Farzaneh has the mother of all earworms stuck in his head and he can share it with others in Bahman Farmanara’s I Want to Dance (trailer here), which screens during the 1^st Iranian Film Festival New York.

After a minor accident, Farzaneh can suddenly hear an infectious Persian dance song in his head. It is so vivid, it is like he is picking up a radio signal. The widowed writer with decades-long writer’s block is not concerned by this turn of events. He just wants to dance. If people lean in close enough, they can hear it too.

Suddenly, the morose Farzaneh has a spring in his step. In the past, he might have been alarmed by the unnamed woman—of questionable repute—who runs a rather casual extortion con on him, but the rejuvenated Farzaneh converts her into an unlikely platonic friend. He even agrees to write her story, even though he has no idea what it is, but the creative license he takes is inspiring—and liberating.

There is more whimsy in Dance than you usually find in Persian cinema, but there is still a serious undertone of elegiac sadness. Due to the occasional flashforward, we understand things maybe do not work for Farzaneh as we might hope, but that old cat still takes those lemons and makes lemonade.

Maybe we are making an allegorical reach (if so, why stop now?), but to an outsider, it looks like there are parallels to be drawn between Farzaneh’s big dancing in the street musical number and the Green Revolution protests. One minute everyone standing shoulder-to-shoulder, sharing a moment of glorious camaraderie and the next minute, it is like it never happened. Yet, Farzaneh still has the song in his heart.

Nevertheless, the really bittersweet stuff involves Farzaneh’s undefinable relationship with the woman. Reza Kianian and Mahnaz Afshar develop some wonderfully ambiguous, sly bantering chemistry together. Omid Sohrabi’s wistful screenplay avoids most of the standard issue clichés, like “Madame,” Farzaneh’s torch-carrying neighbor lady, who chooses to befriend the mystery lady and get in on their game rather than resenting her as a rival.

I Want to Dance is either considerably sadder or quirkier than this review makes it sound. Somehow, Farmanara balances the vibe on a knife’s edge, vacillating between the two moods. As an added bonus, the big centerpiece musical number is a real showstopper. Frankly, the film addresses all kinds of hot button issues, most notably including police conduct, gender inequalities, and mental health treatment, but it never feels political. Highly recommended, I Want to Dance screens this Saturday (1/12), as part of the 1^st IrFFNY, at the IFC Center.

IrFFNY ’19: Sly

No country has a monopoly on buffoonish presidents, but probably none was scarier than Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Fortunately, his over-the-top saber-rattling rhetoric, mangled syntax, and constant accusations of nepotism finally turned even his hardline Islamist extremist patrons against him. Yet, he still has a name and a following, so this no-holds-barred satire is undeniably quite a bold work of cinema. Qodrat Samadi follows a very different career trajectory, but Iranian viewers will immediately recognize his physical and ideological resemblance to Ahmadinejad in Kamal Tabrizi’s Sly (trailer here), which screens during the 1st Iranian Film Festival New York.

Samadi is convinced he is destined to save Iran from infidels and Western agents, but the hardline political parties never accept him as a candidate, because of his clownish demeanor and excessive (even by their standards) intolerance. Nevertheless, a small group of hardcore rabble rousers remains loyal to him. Then one fateful day, Samadi and his band of thugs break up a state sanctioned rock concert by yelling out bomb warnings from the stage. To his utter shock, an actual bomb explodes shortly after Samadi scares everyone out of the theater. Suddenly, the hapless reformist party sees him as a hero figure, whom they recruit to be their standard-bearer in the upcoming election.

Of course, Samadi is an awkward fit for his new party, but he gets some timely coaching from a progressive journalist he rather fancies. In fact, the brash firebrand has a strange habit of speaking out more forcefully than his timid patrons. Unfortunately, just when he is poised to take off in the polls, his past comes back to haunt him.

Even though Ahmadinejad’s old allies have reportedly cut him loose, it is still pretty stunning to see such brazen political ridicule coming out of Iran. We will get a chance to see it, which is very cool, but it remains to be seen whether it will be allowed to screen within Iran. It would not be surprising if the powers-that-be deem it generally bad for business, but hope springs eternal, does it not?

Regardless, Hamed Behdad completely embraces Samadi’s absurdism, playing him like Ahmadinejad, by way of Chauncey Gardiner from Being There. He is sort of like Redford in The Candidate, but he is asking “what do I do now?” right from the start. Ironically, you could argue this is the best press Ahmadinejad has had in years, but he probably does not see it that way.

Even though the journalist is a somewhat underwritten part, Vishka Asayesh has a Persian Katharine Hepburn thing going on that plays well on-screen. It is still hard to understand why she doesn’t push Samadi under a bus. On the other hand, director-thesp Mani Haghighi is quite droll as hypocritical newspaper editor out to sabotage Samadi’s campaign (again).

It is darned impressive Tabrizi finished Sly and has taken it to international festivals. Iran’s Islamist power brokers may have severed ties with Ahmadinejad, but they are not inclined to appreciate this kind of impish mockery of an authority figure. Of course, we’re all in favor of it. Recommended for its subversive wit and general boldness, Sly screens this Saturday (1/12), as part of the 1^st IrFFNY, at the IFC Center.

IrFFNY ’19: Pig

They say when you are on the outs in Hollywood, you can’t even get arrested in the company town. The outlook is even worse for blacklisted Iranian director Hasan Kasmai. He can’t even get murdered. Somebody is ritualistically executing Iran’s most prominent filmmakers and it is killing Kasmai that nobody is killing him in Mani Haghighi’s Pig (trailer here), which screens during the Iranian Film Festival New York.

Kasmai cannot work, so as far as he is concerned, nobody else should either, especially not his actress mistress Shiva Mohajer. He might be a victim of Iran’s thought police, but the entitled egomaniac is a hard man to like. Nonetheless, Mohajer and his wife and family put up with him. His self-image was already bruised, but when less talented directors are found decapitated, with the word “pig” carved across their foreheads, he cannot help feel jealous of all the attention they receive. Add in a stalker of Kasmai’s own and you have quite a stew of trouble.

Frankly, Pig would be a pretty gutsy satire if it were Hollywood-set and made. As an Iranian film that so explicitly addresses the sort of filmmaking bans that have been imposed on Jafar Panahi, it is bold to the point of inviting trouble. Obviously, the use of the word “pig” adds an additional charge to the film. Mostly, it offers up some razor-sharp social observations, but there are some legit genre elements to Pig as well.

Hasan Majuni out-everythings Tim Robbins in The Player as the ragingly self-absorbed, utterly obnoxious Kasmai. Yet, there is something about his sad hound dog persona that maintains our unlikely audience sympathy. It is also deeply compelling to watch the great Leila Hatami put up with one darned thing after another as the long-suffering Mohajer. Ali Mosaffa is hilarious (not a word often associated with Persian cinema) as Sohrab Saidi, Kasmai’s shallow but infinitely more politically shrewd rival, while Ali Bagheri is weirdly, ambiguously disconcerting as Azemat, the lead investigator of the “Pig” murders.

It is hard to believe this film exists at all. Although it depicts some pretty extraordinary developments, it features plenty of telling details. Regardless of the circumstances, it is highly problematic when a witness of interest is brought into a police station for questioning blindfolded. Just about everyone takes it on the chin during Pig, including the Iranian film industry, the cops, and social media. Some of the dream sequences look a bit cheesy, but the film’s reality is so hyper-real, it will blow your mind. Highly recommended, Pig screens this Friday (1/11), as part of the 1^st IrFFNY, at the IFC Center.

IrFFNY ’19: Tale of the Sea

A writer ought to take satisfaction from the publication of his work, but it doesn’t work that way when the authorities censor and bowdlerize books arbitrarily. Alas, Taher Mohebi will not find much consolation on the home front either in Bahman Farmanara’s Tale of the Sea (trailer here), the opening night film of the inaugural Iranian Film Festival New York.

Mohebi suffered from a trauma-induced schizophrenic breakdown, but he is now sufficiently stable to return home. The problem is his wife Jaleh does not want him back. In fact, she wants to divorce the Gloomy Gus. However, his concerned doctor convinces her to humor the “Maestro,” at least for the near term.

Unaware of Jaleh’s frustrations, Mohebi slips back into his old absent-minded habits. He also starts hallucinating encounters with long-departed friends. However, things come to a head when Parvaneh, the daughter of Jaleh’s estranged best friend, now deceased, requests permission to visit.

Tale is an elegiac film several times over, dedicated to a number of Farmanara’s fondly remembered fellow artists, particularly Abbas Kiarostami, whom Mohebi calls out by name at one point in the picture. It is all about coming to terms with loss, disappointment, and failure in the twilight of life. Tale is definitely a meditative film, but Farmanara also rather boldly and openly slips in plot points involving Mohebi’s conflicts with censorship and the travails of his former student Amir Dashti, who is hunted and beaten by the secret police.

Farmanara himself plays Mohebi with the befuddled elegance Alec Guinness might have brought to the role in an Ealing comedy. He is charming and dignified, but it is easy to understand why his wife finds him insufferable. Yet, viewers will still sympathize with him when he finally faces the full totality of his life’s decisions.

Fatemah Motamed-Aria is emotionally brittle and intense as the long-suffering Jaleh, but Leila Hatami really lowers the boom as Parvaneh, an innocent born of scandal, almost like a character out of Hawthorne novels. Ali Mosaffa (Farhani’s The Past) is solid but somewhat under-employed as the conscientious doctor, but veteran thesp Ali Nassirian adds sly grace as the ghost or vision of Mohebi’s friend Hooshang.

Farmanara says quite a bit in Tale, while keeping up deceptively simple appearances. Although it is not an overtly allegorical film, it is not much of a stretch to argue Mohebi represents a generation of artists who did not get what they expected from the Iranian history they lived through. Very highly recommended, Tale of the Sea screens this Thursday (1/10), kicking off the 1^st IrFFNY, at the IFC Center.