The Green Wave, cont.

Some good news for a change.

An Iranian court has overturned the lashing sentence imposed on an actor after she appeared in a film critical of the Islamic republic's repressive policies, according to Amnesty International. Marzieh Vafamehr, who appeared with her head uncovered in the film My Tehran for Sale, was released from prison after her sentence of one year in prison and 90 lashes was overturned on appeal. Vafamehr, wife of the acclaimed film-maker Nasser Taghvai, was arrested in July after Iranian authorities took exception to the film about an actor whose theatre work is banned in Iran.

 The Iranian authorities detained Vafamehr for criticism of the exact repression they enacted upon her and continue to level on many of her fellow actors, filmmakers, and artists. Doesn't the government realize that the more they try to squeeze and silence dissent, the more it will slip out of their iron grasp?

(Video: Trailer for My Tehran for Sale, 2011.)

The Green Wave

Perhaps what fascinates me the most about Iranian cinema is the urgent, visceral interaction between the zeitgeist of oppression in the country and the craft the filmmakers use to react to and comment on it. With renowned directors like Jafar Panahi (Offside) and Mohammad Rasoulof (The White Meadows) being arrested and banned from filmmaking by the Iranian regime, the stakes are so high for all filmmakers in Iran that such jeopardy cannot help but coat the characters and stories in their films.

The latest example is Dog Sweat, wherein young Tehranis pursue such innocent desires as alcohol, companionship, and musical expression, all in the face of systematic oppression.

The trailer is reminiscent of another recent Iranian film, No One Knows About Persian Cats. This, the fifth directorial work by Iranian-Kurd Bahman Ghobadi, follows a couple of bandmates as they race around Tehran trying desperately to both secure visas to travel to London for a music festival and plan one last underground concert in their home country before leaving. The film is a wonderful and at times hysterical journey through the electric, boisterous world of illegal music in urban Iran; its a universe that is quite similar to yet terrifyingly different from the one this American viewer inhabits. What might get you played on KEXP in Seattle will get you arrested in Tehran if you are not careful.

Indeed it is true that all cinema, regardless of national origin, reflects the reality it is conceived in to some degree, but the films coming out of Iran, especially since the unprecedented post-election protests and deadly crackdown, seem like a natural and crucial part of the life of that country. 

Review: Women Without Men

The destinies of Iran and its women are inseparable; this is a major theme of Shirin Neshat's debut feature Women Without Men. Set against the unrest of the Anglo-American coup to remove democratically elected Iranian Prime Minister Mohammad Mossadegh and install the shah, the film zooms in on four women suffering various kinds of oppression: Zarin, a depressed prostitute, who scrubs herself bloody at a public bath in an effort to purge the johns from her body; Munis, a politically aware young woman who voraciously devours news of the demonstrations outside, but is kept from leaving the house by Amir Khan, her religiously zealous brother; her best friend Faezeh, who lusts after Amir Khan from beneath her hejab, much to Munis' bewilderment; and Farrokhlagha, a general's wife who's finding herself suffocated by the pro-shah Tehran aristocracy she and her husband exist in.

 Though the whole ensemble does outstanding work, the one performance that sticks out is Pegah Ferydoni as sweet, unassuming Faezeh. She provides a quiet emotional center for the film. While everyone else is going kind of crazy, she becomes saner and grows quite a bit.

The film follows a kind of dream logic, fueled by the complex history of Iran and the rhythm of Persian poetry. Iranian scholar Hamid Dabashi said that if jazz is the rhythm of American culture, then Persian poetry is that of Iranian culture. This kind of poetic focus brings a unique structure to the scenes; each sequence is a whole statement, while still helping to stitch the tapestry of the film entire. This is also no doubt influenced by Neshat's background as video artist. 

In order to get some fresh air away from the tumult of Tehran, Farrokhlagha buys an Edenesque old orchard in the country, to which Zarin and Faezeh are both inexplicably drawn. For a while they live in blissful harmony, but there is a foreboding calm-before-the-storm undercurrent which lets us know that they cannot escape the changes happening in their nation for long.