Iranian cinema
This is to me, by me, about the following 4 films (listed in the order that I watched them with their MUBI synopsis):
Taste of Cherry (Abbas Kiarostami, 1997) - Middle-aged Mr. Badii wishes to die in a society where suicide is considered an abomination. Driving in the hills above Tehran, he searches for an accomplice who is willing to bury him after he is dead. He meets an assortment of different characters, but each have reasons to turn down the job.
Hit the Road (Panah Panahi, 2021) - Driving across wide landscapes, a family navigates a road trip full of conflicting emotions. Dad has a broken leg and a mood to match while Mum fusses over her two children and the dog. As the destination draws closer, the claustrophobia in the car grows alongside the love they have for each other.
A Separation (Asghar Farhadi, 2011) - When his wife leaves him, Nader hires a young woman to take care of his senile father. But he doesn’t know his new maid is not only pregnant but also working without her unstable husband’s permission. Soon, Nader finds himself entangled in a web of lies manipulation, and public confrontations.
No Bears (Jafar Panahi, 2022) - Jafar Panahi plays a fictionalised version of himself, who has relocated to a rural border town in Iran to remotely direct a new film in nearby Turkey. While there, he finds himself thrust in the middle of a local scandal, confronting the opposing pulls of tradition and progress.
The first film I watched this year was Abbas Kiarostami’s seminal work ‘Taste of Cherry’ and it moved me so profoundly that even 8 months later, it remains in the top 5 films I’ve watched this year. More impressively, perhaps, is the fact that the other 3 Iranian films I’ve watched to date pretty comfortably sit in the top 10 films of the year. Those are: Panah Panahi’s ‘Hit the Road,’ Asghar Farhadi’s ‘A Separation’ and ‘No Bears’ by Jafar Panahi. So I’m writing this to try to understand what about Iranian cinema appeals so much to me and why I continue to be enthralled, excited and enamoured by it.
Films from countries like China, Taiwan and Hong Kong perennially occupy my favourite non-English language film favourites. This, to me, is perfectly natural. I understand the languages being spoken in these films, the food eaten feels comforting and the cultural norms and traditions feel familiar. It dissolves and/or confronts the pervasive feeling of “otherness” that feels like an inevitability in other areas of my life and speaks to the importance of seeing yourself in the media you consume. On the other hand, Iranian cinema benefits from none of these characteristics - it is foreign to me in every sense of the word. In particular, these films belong to a different time era and a different social/political/cultural context; I understand neither the language, nor the traditions nor the religion. Unlike much of the cinema from Europe, where the cultural cinematic moments of any individual nation seems inextricably linked to any and every other nation, Iranian cinema seems to belong to a universe of its own without a comparable history of cinema in a similar geographic location. So, why?
There are some simple explanations that I won’t give too much attention to. First, selection bias- in which, the Iranian films that I am likely to watch (ie. they’ve been subtitled in English), are also likely the films that are considered great. Second, the undeniable influence that these directors had on each other - Jafar Panahi was an assistant to Abbas Kiarostami and Panah Panahi, as you may have gathered, is Jafar Panahi’s son. Third, they are all dramas, maybe I just like dramas. All these answers are somewhat correct but aren’t particularly interesting.
Perhaps, the most nuanced answer to my increasing admiration for Iranian cinema comes down to the characters. Well written narratives rely on well written characters - for me, a less-than-compelling story can be saved by a complex and fleshed out character; I don’t believe this is true in the other direction. The importance of character is obvious for films like ‘Taste of Cherry’ which is essentially a one-man show where the protagonist, Badii, searches for someone to bury him after he plans to commit suicide. Homayoun Ershadi’s performance is compelling because it’s ambiguous - it’s never clear why he wishes to commit suicide or why he values the Islamic views on burial but not on suicide. Similarly, in Farhadi’s ‘A Separation,’ the narrative relies on the conflicting motives, perspectives and desires of a family. The characters are so well-written and the narrative so delicately crafted, that I cannot sympathise with any one character over another. We understand why the father wants to stay in Iran and look after his father, we understand why the mother wishes to divorce the father to guarantee her daughter a better life, we understand why the carer lies and then, later, refuses to lie and most of all, we understand the lengths the daughter goes to to keep her family together. ‘No Bears’ arguably has the least well-written characters but its significant gravity is felt from the fact that it’s an autofiction in which Jafar Panahi plays a fictionalised version of himself. Jafar’s personal tragedies are undeniable and confronting in a way that is singularly unique to him and his narrative is compelling. Where these three films are overtly tragic in a way that’s spoken and tangible, Panah’s ‘Hit the Road’ hides its tragedies in the silence of this family as they journey to an unnamed location. The emotional arc of the family is tied together by the naive and chaotic youngest son which I briefly wrote about in my comparison to Edward Yang’s ‘Yi Yi.’
I am aware that well-written characters are a defining part of any moving and profound film. However, when I reflect on what is unique about the characters in these four films, it occurs to me that it’s their inability to be stereotyped in a way that makes them understandable but I can provide no further insight. I don’t know if it’s my sentimentality but I believe it’s the legacy of Kiarostami’s humanism that informs the depiction of character in all of these films.
The other defining feature of these films is the stubborn refusal to pander to the viewer coupled with the love for an ambiguous ending; these four films rarely, if ever, devote time to eliciting sympathy or even providing context for what has been lost. Despair, injustice, tragedy are all unapologetically present and the political and social contexts of the film are felt through the lives of the characters. As aforementioned, ‘Taste of Cherry’ does not explain why Badii is so desperate to commit suicide, ‘Hit the Road’ does not explicitly explain why the older brother must leave, ‘A Separation’ makes no attempt to depict a happy family prior to the events of the film and, finally, the couples in ‘No Bears’ are either never shown or are never happy. This is all hampered with an either ambiguous ending as in ‘No Bears’ and ‘A Separation’ or a new-mythic / avant-garde one as in ‘Taste of Cherry’ and ‘Hit the Road.’
I suppose I’ll end by speaking about each of these films individually.
‘Taste of Cherry’ is naturalistic in style but is quiet and slow in a way that’s quite abstract. Many of the conversations that Mr Badii has with others seem coded in metaphors and the vast, golden cinematography lends the film it’s deeply atmospheric quality. One of the people that Mr Badii attempts to convince to participate in his project comes up with a line that rivals Camus’ sappy line about coffee: “I had left to kill myself and I came back with mulberries.”
‘Hit the Road’ belies a Panahi sense of humor that is heartwarming and heartbreaking. In one instance, the older son says to his father “I love you” to which he receives simply “shut up” as a response. It’s not a particularly melodramatic family drama but it’s banality is ultimately what makes it so tragic. The film is laden with symbols and sub-narratives that are tied together by the chaotic and unhinged youngest son who stops them from seeming heavy-handed.
‘A Separation’ has superb emotional control and tempering - the tragedy of the outcome and the paralysis of the daughter’s indecision can be felt long before it actually happens and in a way that is unpredictable. The perfect encapsulation of flawed people making the decisions that they think is best for them with unintended consequences.
‘No Bears’ is funny despite all its tragedies. There's a scene when Jafar is on the way to swear on the Quran and a villager convinces him go for tea because there are bears on his path. At tea, he tells Jafar that it’s ok to lie on the Quran as long as it’s to keep the peace. Then, as the villager goes to leave and Jafar asks him something akin to “arent’ you going to come with me, what about the bears,” to which he, without flinching, says “there are no bears, that’s just something people say to scare others.” The audacity is hilarious.
Anyway, that’s all.
