Iranian Cinema - Beyond Festival Films

Hardly a large film festival takes place in Europe without having an Iranian contribution. Yet, in Iran itself, opinions vary widely on such films as "Children of Heaven" or "The Silence", all highly personal tales of solidarity and friendship. By Amin Farzanefar

Mehdi Abdollahzadeh is furious and doesn’t exclude anyone when venting his wrath - neither Mohsen Makhmalbaf, Abolfazl Jalili, nor Madjid Madjidi.

The films by these directors, Iranians who have won acclaim for themselves primarily abroad, are "a pack of lies", complains the Teheran film critic. In any event, they certainly don’t represent the reality of life in the country.

Success in the West more important than in Iran

Abdollahzadeh is not alone in Iran with his opinion of the so-called "festival directors". In particular, any appeal that festival favorite Makhmalbaf ("Kandahar", 2001) had previously earned with his social content films critical of the regime, has since been lost on the critics.

Many now regard him as an egomaniac, for whom success in the West is at least as important as approval on the home market. And Madjid (who received an Oscar nomination for "Children of Heaven", 1998) is viewed merely as a talented copier.

So, are the films that are shown in the West in any way representative of Iranian cinema? Iranian film experts constantly raise the objection that export and festival cinema creates a false and exotic picture of Iran.

"Children of Heaven", "The Silence", "A Time for Drunken Horses", and other films tend to portray highly personal tales of solidarity and friendship, take place in poor suburbs or richly colored rural backdrops, and the protagonists are almost always children.

Considering the day-to-day reality of Iranian life, which shimmers back and forth between medieval tradition and modern urban complexity, the accusation that depictions in these films are sanitized and unrealistic may not be totally unjustified.

But where can one find "true" Iranian cinema? Let’s take a quick look at the Iranian film-going public. They, for instance, love the filmmaker Bahram Beyzai. For over 30 years, he has enjoyed top honors as a theater and film director, and, after nine years of censor-induced silence, his 2001 release of "Killing Mad Dogs" was the box-office hit of the year.

This political thriller, portrayed as a settling of accounts with the corrupt Rafsanjani era, was nowhere to be seen in the West. Equally absent from screens abroad were Beyzai’s blockbusters "Pastry Girl", "Letters of the Wind", and "Bread, Love and a Motorcycle 1001".

Forgotten Arab and Indian Cinema

Also interesting is that there is no particular love of Arab or Indian cinema among the masses – in the last eight years, there has not been a single film from these countries screened in Iran.

Curiously enough, the West seems much closer than Iran’s immediate neighbors, even though a mere 6 to 8 Hollywood films make it to Iranian movie theaters each year.

Despite great pride in the country’s more than one hundred year old film history, Western cinema is enormously popular among Iran’s young people, and practically every recent Hollywood film is available on CD, DVD, or video.

The screens of urban movie houses are dominated by locally made action films, romantic melodramas, and family comedies, which frequently follow a Hollywood formula.

Nevertheless, some of the films acclaimed in the West do find a public in Iran as well. Names such as Rassul Sadr Ameli ("I’m Taraneh, 15", 2002), Rakhshan Bani-Etemad ("Under the skin of the City", 2003), Bahman Ghobadi ("Marooned in Iraq", 2002), Manijeh Hekmat ("Women’s Prison", 2002), and Abbas Kiarostami represent a group of filmmakers that have celebrated success both at home and abroad with their social-realism style of cinema.

A complex and multi-layered picture of Iran

Kiarostami, in particular, has long been regarded as a pioneer of the cinematic exodus from the cities, and, with his most recent film, he has once again become the focus of political attention. In "Ten" (2002), a young woman taxi driver chauffeurs her predominantly female clientele through Tehran.

Over the course of discussions between the driver and passengers, the director presents a complex and multi-layered picture of Iran’s women population.

While this masterpiece can, for the time being, only be seen in Iran during special screenings, the movie charts show that the former naïve eyes of childhood have been replaced with the angry gaze of youth.

The reform policies of President Chatami have led to decentralization, the establishing of private production companies, less severe censor regulations, and, thereby, to a greater willingness to deal with more delicate subjects.

The new Iranian cinema depicts illegal parties, alcohol and drug consumption, and only superficially glossed-over criticism of the state. More and more, even the most manifest symbol of power of the current regime, the headscarf, is removed for brief moments.

Instead of using the cinematic language of the meditative art films that are so successful at festivals, these depictions of a young, parallel society breaking with taboos utilize, more often than not, the studied imagery of Hollywood cinema and video clips – without the directors abandoning any of the characteristic Iranian themes or archetypes.

In a land of paradoxes, contrasts, and ambiguities, and which is simultaneously going through a great societal upheaval, this change reflects a deep transformation in the content and aesthetics of Iranian film.

Amin Farzanefar