Any other country would be proud to have such a talented actress, and would probably trying to nominate her for an Oscar award. But the authorities of the IRI mullah regime in Tehran have other standards of showing their admiration. Marzieh Vafamehr, playing in the Australian movie “My Tehran for Sale” has been sentenced to 90 lashes. The actress, who was arrested in July and sentenced by the court this past weekend, appeared in the movie without a headscarf on and a shaved head, and the story involved both drug use and an observation of Iran’s oppressive ways.
In a cruel twist of irony, Vafamehr played the lead in the film, also named Marzieh, an actress in Tehran whose theatre work is banned by the government, forcing her to lead a secret life in order to pursue her passions. One night she meets a fellow Iranian named Saman who now resides in Australia and offers her a chance to also escape the everyday fears of being who you want to be that come with living there.

We were out to watch the new Iranian movie “Paziraie sadeh” (MODEST RECEPTION). Movie director Mani Haghighi lets his two main characters (Laila played by Taraneh Alidoosti and Kaveh by Mani Haghighi) drive through the mountains on a random search for people, whom they can hand over buckets of bank-notes they carrie with them. The actors act very statically, I got the impression though they could do much better, i.e. the director did not managed to let them show their real artistic potential. It remains very difficult for the audience to understand the personality of Leila and Kaveh, what drives them trough all the difficulties. The whole story is full of symbolism, a shrub in the desert set afire by Kaveh, a pack of wood he is carrying on their ride, an injured mule that is shot dead at the end, a man in the middle of nowhere burying his baby. All these symbolic scenes together might form a single messianic secret, but this is hidden behind the very fast cuts of the movie and the sometimes hysteric acting of the characters. I think a movie should not require a special introductory lesson for the ordinary audience to decipher and enjoy the story. Because that will always remain the essence of a movie, whether a tragedy or a comedy, a love story or a political thriller, a science fiction tale or a historic epos: Over 90 minutes or longer, we want to follow a story, characters that interact and respond, who change and develope under the influence of their experiences. I missed all this in Haghighi award winning movie here, Leila and Kaveh where exactly the same at the beginning and at the end of the movie. The only changes that occured were outside of them: The money was all given away, the car was a bit dirtier than originally, the sick mule was dead, the baby was layed down in the grave. Perhaps the most relevant impact on peoples life and destiny took place in the non-visible side-characters: most of the people that were given the bunches of bank-notes were only visible behind helmets, beards, or face scarfs. And as soon as they grabbed the money, the scenes were cut and the people were never seen any more. I would predict that for these poor people the encounter with Leila and Kaveh, that suddenly brought a lot of money for them and their families, had a much greater impact on to their life than for the two Tehrany nuveau-rich.

I had only two associations after the movie: A hopeless situation without an exit. People kept in troublesome state that only gets worse, and no sign for a solution. Very much Kafka like, so really coming from the heart of the Iranian intellectuals.
This movie convinced me that most cinematography produced inside the country gives a pessimistic impression, showing people suffering in one or the other way from the hopeless situation. The movies by Iranian ex-pats produced in Europe or the US, on the other side, show the characters as strong, active and optimistic person. I have to admit, I like this outside view more.

Recently I was invited by a friend in Munich to a reading of poetry by an Iranian writer, who died much too young in 1967, only reaching 32 years of age. Forugh Farrokhzad (1935-1967) was exceptional among woman in modern Persian literature, since only an extremely small number of Iranian women in general have achieved anything outside of the home without dependence upon a relationship with a man or male patronage.

From the poems of Forough Farrokhzad, which Kianoosh presented this evening I remember the verses from “Another Birth”

… Life may be that cloistered moment
When my gaze comes to ruin in your pupils
Wherein there lies a feeling
Which I shall blend …

During her short life, Forough not only wrote some of the most influential, beautiful and ever-lasting poetries of modern Persian literature, but she also became a proponent of childrens right, in particular for those from the poor families. Her engagement for the children being isolated and hospitalized for leprosis laid in her honest sympathy with those who are suffering. Unlike modern celebrities, who too often present themself in public with an alibi “social” project, Foroughs activites to help the children with leprosis came from her very personal desire to make the world a little bit better.

From the movie “Moon, Sun, Flower, Play” by the German director Claus Strigel one can listen to Foroughs voice, hear how colleagues and friends remember this extraordinary woman and watch scenes from the street-battle preceding the Shahs dismissal and from the childrens leprosis hospital.

Nahid Persson-Sarvestani, a former activist of the student branch of the Tudeh party and in the late 70s among the demonstrators against Shah Reza Pahlevi, now lives in Sweden as a film-director. In her 3 parts documentary, she interviews Farah Diba, the last empress of Iran, who now lives in exil in Paris.

part 1

part 2

part 3

Farah Diba speaks with a broken voice, and Nahid Persson, although with a politically active background, seems to be more interested in the private life of the Shahs widow. The Shahbanou, however, is a professional when it comes to any media contacts. She only repeats the details of her life with the Shah, how they first met, how Reza Pahlevi asked her to become his wife – stories, she already told too often to be published in the yellow press. Sometimes, Farah Diba tries to shift the conversation more into a political and historical context, asking Mrs. Nahid Persson-Sarvestani on which side she was on during the 1979 revolution, the communists Tudeh people, or the peoples Mudjaheddin, or the violent islamists of the Fedajin. Persson apparently fears a clear confession at this point, since the blunt anti-Shah activities she was involved in prepared the ground for the most inhuman, hypocrite and stupid regimes ever seen in recent history: the so-called “Islamic Republic of Iran”.
So these two woman who 35 years ago were on opposite sites of the battle line in pre-revolutionary Iran, now find them self in exile, one in Paris the other in Stockholm, and both see with bitterness their lost dreams. If the two would be ready to give up their wounded pride, maybe they would find out how much in common they had in their youth. Both were dreaming of a modern and liberal society, with secular education, open to the rest of the world, liberated woman and social and economic prosperity. But each of the two, the aristocrats and the socialist, both were wrestling for leadership in this movement. And both were loosing everything. What arose after the Shah and his family had to leave in 1979, and the Tudeh for a short moment thought their triumph is in sight, was the worst nightmare of an extreme conservative, religious, anachronistic and brutal dictatorship of uneducated and corrupt Mullahs.
The people of Iran have to suffer since 34 years under a totalitarian regime, that tortures, rapes, kills everybody who is not following its islamic hypocrisis and dares to question the political regime of the mullahs with their basidj thugs.
It would have been nice to see in the documentary that both, Farah Diba and Mrs. Nahid Persson-Sarvestani would finally admit that the two blocks they belonged to, the progressive Tudeh party and the Shahs court, did a historical mistake by not finding a way to cooperate and anticipate how much their dreams had in common.

Thank you, Ninelia, for pointing me to this gem of political documentation.

Many times Tolstojs novel “Anna Karenina” was brought on the cinema screens, by not so famous film directors, but with actresses who after playing the leading character became movie stars (or were movie stars before already). Sophie Marceau, Jacqueline Bisset, Vivien Leigh and of course Greta Garbo. And now, we have the pleasure to enjoy a more modern Anna Karenina, using state-of-the-art 21st century cinematografic techniques. One of the most intriguing moments in the 1935 movie with Greta Garbo shows her arrival by train in Moscow, when she arises through a steam-cloud and leaves Wronski, who came to the train station only to meet his mother, breathless.

Before I consider to see the new movie (staring Keira Knightly as Anna and Jude Law as Mr. Karenin and Aaron Taylor-Johnson as Wronski), I first want to see how the train station scene has been set up. If this scene is weak, or a disappointment as compared to Greta Garbos one, I wont see the entire movie.

Dear Michael, you wrote some articles here at your blog and at Iranian.com about the modern Iranian cinematography. I’d like to add a movie by the young Iranian filmmaker Maryam Kesharvarz onto your list , called “Circumstances” (“Sharayet” in its persian original).

I saw it recently with friends who got it on DVD, since it is not yet shown in the movie-theaters in Sweden. The movie is about two girls who go to University and are like sisters in mind. The parents of Shirin, the more quiet of the two, were obviously killed by the regime for participating in political opposition. The family of Atafeh, however, is very well situated and rich, although not conformist. A brother of Atafeh, in the past supposed to start a career as musician, returns from a long absence and makes a completely brain-washed impression. Still loved by his mother and dad, he is depressed and drug addicted and finally only sees a way out his mental problems by devoting his life to Allah and becoming a servant of the regime.
The main person of the movie, however, are the two girls Shirin and Atafeh, who are both full of dreams of a career as singers, in a liberal and free society. This clashes with both the opressive political regime in Iran, with the dogmatic situation at the college, but brings them also in conflict with Atafehs well positioned family. In one scene of the movie, during a family celebration where usually everybody contributes a song on the piano, Atafehs brother insist that the girls should not perform any more, since he considers this as anti-islamic. Trying to avoid any conflict, her family declines to the brothers hypocrism and recommends their daughter to stay silent.
Atafeh and Shirin look for freedom of thoughts and more wild experiences by joining the Tehran party scene. When one of these illegal parties is raided by the regimes Basidj thugs, they both get arrested. Whereas Atafehs parents manage to bribe some of the police officers to get their daughter out, Shirin is kept for longer in custody and she is mentally tortured there. Atafehs depressive brother suddenly appears to work for the police. When he finds Shirin he offers her to work for her release, but only if she agrees to marry her.
Throughout the entire film, however, it is obvious that Shirin and Atafeh are more than just friends, they are connected by a deep, mutual love. This love between the two girls is the source of all their strength, of their endless confidence that a better and free life will come and they will start a great music career together somewhere abroad.
The film finishes undecided, without happy end. At one moment, Shirin declines to the possessory claims by her husband, Shirins brother. But it is clear that she is only suffering here.
The unconditional love between the two girls serves as the big contrast to a society which is driven by anxiety, lies and hate. When Shirin and Atafeh are together, their honesty and love is like a glance into a better future of the country.

And this is what I red in the UK newspaper Guardian about this marvellous movie:

“Circumstance’s strength is in the exuberance of Atafeh and Shireen, filled with adolescent fantasies of escape (and cringeworthy lad’s mag-style fantasies of each other: all matching underwear and high heels) and their rebellious rush to dance, drink and break rules. At times the sensuous hair-flicking and the way the camera lingers on their beauty feels overdone and their interest in liberalism seems to extend only to their right to party.
But the film frames their insistence on following their desires, whatever the consequences, as a powerful form of dissent; Atafeh tells a friend: “Here anything illegal becomes politically subversive.”
Set immediately before the protests of the Green movement swept through Iran, the film aims to show where the anger behind the demonstrations came from. “In Iran where the state controls your behaviour … they want you to dress a certain way, and not speak to people of the opposite sex in the street – of course the personal is political,” explains Keshavarz, “in a more explicit way than anywhere else.”“

Dearest Ghazal,
Before the 2012 Oscar will be awarded on February 26th to the different categories of cinematography, I would like to say something about the state of the Iranian Cinema. This year, the highly acclaimed masterpiece “Nader and Simin – A separation” by the prominent Iranian film-maker Asghar Farhadi is nominated as the best non-english movie and for the best script.

“Nader and Simin” was not the only Iranian film which made it to the western screens during the last years. We were mesmerized by Ali Samadi Ahadis “Green Wave” and “Salami Aleikum“, by Shirin Neshats “Zanan-e bedun-e mardan (Woman without Men)” and by the magic realism of Marjam Satrapis “Persepolis” and “Chicken with Plums“.
Movies by Iranian directors who have the chance to work abroad (like Marjan Satrapi or Ali Samadi Ahadi) are extraordinary masterpieces, carrying a very unique handwriting of their directors. And they breath the spirit of freedom and of unlimited creativity. But because they are produced in the west, they attract much less media attention. The media and critics in the west too often judge a movie more by the circumstances under which it has been produced, and therefore grant a movie that has been produced inside the country an extra bonus for “braveness”. And for this extra bonus there seem to be a consensus that Iranian movies which are a domestic production (like those by Jafar Panahi, Abbas Kiarostami, Asghar Fahadi or Mohammad Rasoulof) might lack the free-spirit and the very personal and experimental techniques and tough expressions, which are characteristic for movies like “Green Wave” or “Salami Alaikum” by Ali Samadi Ahadi, “Woman without Men” by Shirin Neshat or “Chicken with Plum” by Marijam Satrapi. How is it possible, that although anything else than happy ending soft-stories, these four movies leave the audience with a feeling of hope, with the confidence that even the biggest tragedy will find a solution, or at least a meaning ? Is it because each tragedy will lose its horror if it can be openly narrated, if a movie-director can show and say everything he/she wants to say, using the words and pictures he/she feels are appropriate in this very moment ? This way even the saddest and tragic stories like in “Green Wave” or in “Chicken with Plum” can be presented with the greatest of ease. Here, the movie will be a relieve for the director, for the actors and finally for the audience. Because the emotionally strong stories were transformed into movies with all possible and all neccessary cinematografic elements, the audience feels a strong satisfaction and happiness.
In contrast, the movies produced at home in Iran (like “Darbareye Elly” or “Nader and Simin – A divorce” by Fahadi or “Offside” by Jafar Panahi) can not make us forget that censorship is the dominating condition under which artists have to live and work. Each single word in a dialogue, every character, every scenery has to be considered under the threat of censoreship. The so-called “scissors in your own head” might help the director to finally produce a movie that passes the ideological watch-dogs of the regime, and therefore wont suffer too much from beeing “trimmed” by some uneducated beaurocrats. But the movie itself, even if it fullfills the highest standard of movie-arts and creativity, innovation and honesty, can not make us forget that it was produced under conditions of unfreedom. You still can smell the sweat of the film-makers from the fear of loosing the battle against the beaurocrats, you can feel the many frustrating moments they had when another brilliant idea had to be put aside, for the sake to get the whole project through the machinery. One feels that they had to carefully select their words and their pictures, and this leaves a feeling in the audience that not everything what should have been said and shown in the movie became real.
I still advocate the Oscar beeing awarded to Asghar Fahadi, I think the battle he fought against the dump and dogmatic Iranian censoreship and the excellent team work he set up with great artists such as Sareh Bayat, Leila Hatami, Peyman Hatami and many others should be honoured. I think that none of the directors that left Iran would have had enough mental energy to fight through all these odds as Fahadi did, always beeing aware of the risk to end up in prison or beeing sentenced with a ban to work, as his colleague Jafar Panahi has experienced it. For sure, neither Ali Samadi Ahadi, nor Marijam Satrapi or Shirin Neshat would have had the stand and the courage (and maybe other qualities as well) to go through all the husles and restrictions to produce their movies at home in Iran – but maybe under conditions of relative freedom they are the more innovative and creative art-directors. A case where an Iranian film-maker probably tried to get “the best of both worlds” was Bahman Gobadis “Kasi az gorbehaye irani khabar nadareh (No one knows about persian cats)” According to IMBD, “.. during filming, Ghobadi and his actors were arrested twice but released after giving presents to the authorities and lying about the real subject of the film.” This way Bahman Gobadi found a half legal, half underground style to get a movie approved by the Iranian authorities, although it was full of satyrical episodes and signs showing that a way-out of the misery requires the abolution of the dogmatic islamic laws of the mullahs regime. But this film must be considered a singular event.

In general, Iranian movies must be judged either by their political braveness (if they are produced inside Iran) or by the high cinematographic standard (when they are produced abroad). At the current political situation and the degree of oppression of intellectuals and arts-people under the islamic regime I think it is legitimate to honour with the Oscar award the movies who are the result of a brave political fight. But in history books of Iranian movie arts, I believe, the films of the exiled directors Ali Samadi Ahadi, Marjam Satrapi or Shirin Neshat might be considered more innovative and of longer-lasting value.

Dear Michael,
from the few movie DVDs that you gave me last year in Munich, there were some that may have left a long-lasting impression. For instance “2001 – A space odyssee” and of course “Brackfast at Tiffanys”. If I would have to write a list of movies that are unforgetable for me, these two might be on it. And also the Iranian movie “Zanan-e bedun-e mardan” (Woman without men) by Shirin Nesha, which we saw in the Theatiner cinema. It occupies a firm position on my list, although it might be a very personal opinion.

Yesterday I saw a short film in Swedish TV, which is without any speech, only pictures and sound. But it says everything, does not need an explanation. It is about a young man, homeless, who by watching through a shop window some video-sentences is forced to remember his former life with a happy family. Needless to say, that the family broke up, and what is left over is just despair. But there could be a happy end (which I like so much), when his daughter and his former wife meet him on his rough sleeping site on the streets and re-unite with him.
The movie is called MOMENTOS.
Enjoy, Take Care
/ghazal

MOMENTOS from Nuno Rocha on Vimeo.

Dear Michael,
Have you seen “Melancholia” meanwhile ? I liked your montage of the planet above the Munich sky-line. But always if I think back to my year in your city, I remember very happy moments and a nice summer with the mountains on the horizon and green parks with fresh air and the Isar-wave surfer, the concerts we went together and the river-side we had the bone-fire. Melancholia and Munich don”t really belong to each other.

Do you know what is really weird ?   When I looked closer to the image of the planet Melancholia, I got the feeling that Lars von Trier put a hidden message into the whole story. Am I lunatic ? Or do you also see what I see – that the fuzzy shape of the clouds on Melancholia resemble a Magen David ?

Now if we recall that Melancholia at the end just swallows the earth, in a very calm, almost aesthetic, yet destructive process, what might be the secret message than ? I would not be surprised if von Trier tries to express the old stereotype of the jewish omnipower taking over the whole world.

Don”t know what is his problem ? The best movies were all by jewish directors. They made cinematografie the most relevant type of creative and expressive arts of modern times. What is his issue with this hypothetical jewish conspiracy ?

Funny, isn”t it.
Enjoy the evening, Be happy
/ghazal

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Ghazal Dear,

Are you serious ? You have a very vivid phantasy, girl. I have not seen von Triers movie yet, but now that you claim there is even a hidden message behind the nice special effects, I definitely will go.
Yes I red that he recently made some stupid remarks, about his sympathy for nazis (who were responsible not only for the biggest crime in history, but for the most dumb and primitive movies ever). But later, didn”t von Trier suddenly claimed that he might be Jew himself ? O boy, he is flamboyant guy. Doing good movies, but absolut crazy ideas about the society.

Take Care, (You obviously enjoy disecting the obvious)
Michael

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Hi Michael,
I asked my brother A. if he could manage to convert the original L.v.Trier Melancholia planet
in a video sequence that demonstrates how the hidden Magen David emanates from it.
Look he did a good job. I think he liked it.

Enjoy it, but be careful of all the conspiration theories.
/ghazal