Movie Review: 3 Faces

3 Faces *** ½ / *****

Directed by: Jafar Panahi.

Written by: Jafar Panahi and Nader Saeivar.

Starring: Behnaz Jafari (Herself), Jafar Panahi (Himself), Marziyeh Rezaei (Herself), Maedeh Erteghaei (Herself), Narges Delaram (Mother).

 

Jafar Panahi keeps making films, despite the fact that he has be banned from doing so in his native country of Iran – for speaking out against the government. In the last 10 years, he has made four fascinating films – This is Not a Film, which explicitly tried to skirt the rules of his ban, and addressed it directly, Closed Curtain, about a screenwriter trying to shut out the outside world, unsuccessfully, Taxi – which is basically Panahi driving people around Tehran, sometimes being recognized, sometimes not. Now comes 3 Faces, a surprisingly light film for one that starts with a supposed (and convincingly shot) suicide of a young woman. Once again, Panahi plays himself – he’s one of two main presences in the film – and yet the 3 Faces of the title belong to three actresses, in different phases of their career.

 

The film opens with the supposed suicide of Marziyeh, a young Iranian woman from a remote village, who apparently was accepted to study acting in Tehran, but whose family (and the family of her fiancé) will not let her attend. She’s the first of the three actresses – struggling to even start her career. The second actress is Behnaz Jafari – a famous Iranian actress, who Marziyeh addresses directly in her suicide video – saying she tried to get in contact with her to help her, and since she never got a response, she is now doing this. The video though wasn’t sent to Behnaz – but Panahi, who thinks the suicide must be genuine, because the video is so convincing, and no one from this remote village could do something like that. Behnaz is devastated at the thought that Marziyeh has killed herself – and has enlisted Panahi to drive to her village, and discover the truth. Eventually we will hear – although never see – another actress, now an old woman living on the outskirts of the town, ignored by everyone. She was once famous – doing films before the revolution, whose fate of being poor, alone and forgotten, is trotted out by the villagers as the reason they don’t want people like the “empty headed” Marziyeh from pursuing acting. 

 

Panahi is referencing the films of the late, great Iranian Abbas Kiaorstami here – you will remember that Kiarostami’s Palme D’Or winning film The Taste of Cherry (1997) also revolved around suicide, and took place in the countryside. But Panahi’s film is more hopeful than Kiarostami’s. It is a feminist film in its way – not surprising from the filmmaker, whose last feature before the ban was Offside – about a young woman who wants to go see the national team play soccer – but all women are banned from stadiums. Here, the film is about how little control women have over their own lives – the older actress who has been shamed and ostracized, the young woman who is not allowed to pursue her passion. Only Behnaz has kind of made it out – at least for now, and she is beloved for now – but it’s a tenuous hold.

 

And yet, it would be wrong to say that the film is about how closed minded the small town men who control the women. They have their own problems – and when they first see the famous Behnaz and Panahi, they think they are there to help them with their own issues. They are struggling with basics – and perhaps it really does seem silly to pursue acting.

 

Like most of Panahi’s post ban film, I like the way this one is shot – a lot of long takes, with a camera that moves slowly. The opening, from inside the car as they drive through the night – seems to go on forever, as it slowly revolves, following the pair out of, and back in the car, etc. And it is matched by the haunting final shot of the film, which goes on for a long time. 3 Faces is light in many ways – and yet, it is dealing with serious subjects, and the final shot drive that home. Is it a happy ending? A sad ending? An ending at all? I’m not sure. Panahi doesn’t try and tie everything up – it is, at best, an ambiguous ending. Nothing has really been resolved here – and Panahi doesn’t try to pretend it is.

Movie Review: Taxi

Taxi
Directed by: Jafar Panahi.
Written by: Jafar Panahi.

Iranian director Jafar Panahi isn’t supposed to be making movies – but he continues to anyway. In 2010, he was banned from making films because he angered the government – he was also sentenced to a jail sentence, and banned from leaving the country. Since then, Panahi has made three movies – This is Not a Film, shot with an iPhone in Panahi’s apartment, with a co-director, who doesn’t let Panahi call cut on a shot at one moment, because that would violate the ban, so he lets the shot go a little bit longer. That film was rather playful, while remaining sad – Panahi a prisoner in his own apartment, with nothing to do and nowhere to go – until the final shot that is. His follow-up was Closed Curtain – and again, it was shot by Panahi in his home (not the apartment this time, but a house in the middle of nowhere, where he hopes he can hide his dog) that he was supposed to get euthanized – when two strangers appear, also on the run, and he lets them in. That film, oddly, felt more claustrophobic than This is Not a Film – and also slightly more dour (of the three, it’s also clearly the one that is most like a film). Now he’s back with Taxi – and so is the playfulness. Is he violating the ban on filmmaking with Taxi – in which he does nothing other than drive a cab through the streets of Tehran, picking up various passengers, and talking to them? The camera is mounted on the dashboard – not that uncommon of a thing really – but there are other cameras in the film as well (everyone seems to have them).

The film is clearly not a documentary – but I suppose you’d have trouble actually proving that, as it appears that everyone in the movie (including Panahi himself) is playing a version of himself. The film however is much to “perfect” to simply have been captured on the fly. The film is filled with references to Panahi’s previous films – from Crimson Gold to The Circle to The Mirror to Offside – and Panahi makes no effort to try to disguise this fact (in fact, he has the various people directly reference how similar the events are to Panahi’s films by name). This isn’t so much Panahi bragging, as much as it is him playfully pointing things out, and highlighting the fact that issues addressed in those films are still very much evident in today’s Iran. If Panahi were allowed to make films, he could make them about what he always has.

The passenger who stays in Panahi’s cab the longest – approximately half of the 82 minutes movie – is his niece Hana, a tween who has been given an assignment from school to make a short film. Her teacher has also given her a set of rules that she has to abide by to make a “screenable” film. It’s amusing to watch Hana tell Panahi – an expert on these things – about all the restrictions on what she can and cannot show – and it’s even more amusing to see Hana get mad at a boy who does something in her shot that will make her film not “screenable”. Hana is full of life, and a chatterbox, which contrasts with Panahi’s quiet, often bemused demeanor throughout.

I’m not sure Taxi really adds up to that much. It is the most enjoyable of the three films that Panahi has made since being banned from making films – but it’s also the shallowest. It is basically Panahi playing around with the form – and the definition of what is and isn’t a film, and what is and isn’t real – which he plays with right to memorable final shot (something all three of these films share are killer final shots). But another thing that all three of these films share is a sense of sadness that this is the best Panahi can do right now – because he isn’t allowed to do anything else. It’s still fascinating to watch Panahi work – to play with the form – but the one thing I want is I think what he wants as well – the ability for Panahi to make a film the way he used to. That may never happen, but we can continue to hope it will.

Movie Review: Closed Curtain

Closed Curtain
Directed by: Jafar Panahi & Kambuzia Partovi.
Written by: Jafar Panahi.
Starring: Kambuzia Partovi (Writer), Maryam Moqadam (Melika), Jafar Panahi (Himself), Hadi Saeedi (Melika's Brother), Azadeh Torabi (Melika's Sister), Abolghasem Sobhani (Agha Olia), Mahyar Jafaripour (Younger Brother), Zeynab Kanoum (Herself).

Jafar Panahi has been banned from making films since 2010 – and yet, since then he has made two films. In 2011, there was This is Not a Film, which was a documentary about Panahi, in his apartment (with his cat) as he was waiting on his appeal – he had been sentenced to 6 years in jail, and faced a 20 year ban from having anything to do with making a new film, or leaving Iran. He was convicted for propaganda – but basically, his crime was supporting the “wrong” party in an “election”. This is Not a Film was filmed mainly with an iPhone, and was smuggled out of Iran on a memory stick inside of a cake to get its debut at Cannes. Panahi was defiant and angry throughout This is Not a Fiim. His new film, Closed Curtain, is not a documentary – but like This is Not a Film, is a portrait of Panahi in exile. If he was defiant and angry in This is Not a Film, he is more sad and resigned to his fate in Closed Curtain.

The movie centers on a writer (co-director Kambuzia Partovi), who is clearly inspired by Panahi himself. He arrives at a secluded beach house, and releases his dog from a gym bag – and soon we will find out why. Dogs are considered “unclean” – and have been banned in public in Iran. Later we’ll learn more – than the writer got into a fight over his dog, and is now hiding out at the beach house of a friend to try and let it all blow over. He is writing a screenplay – perhaps the screenplay for the movie we are watching. And then, two people arrive unexpectedly at the house. Melika (Maryam Moqadam) is a young woman and “they” are apparently after her. She is brought there by her brother – and when the writer tries to throw them out, he refuses. He says that he’s leaving Melika here – and the writer must watch her, to ensure she doesn’t kill herself. He’s going to get a car to take her away – and will be back soon. We never see him again – and the two characters share the house uneasily. They argue over who should leave – who “belongs” at the house. They are characters in search of their story, and their creator. And that is when Panahi, playing himself, shows up.

The film is neatly divided into two parts – before and after Panahi show up. It is his house after all. We see the posters for his former movies, and he stalks about the empty house. If he sees either the writer or Melika, he doesn’t acknowledge them. In their conversations, they acknowledge Panahi – working together to try and provoke Panahi into doing something.

The first half of the film is more effective than the second. The first half of the movie is mysterious, and seems like it could go in any number of different directions. You sit there and try and figure it all out. How much of this is “real”, how much is “imagined” – etc. The second half of the film isn’t nearly as effective – once the movie starts to reveal its mysteries, they become much less interesting.

What that second half of the film does do very well though is act as a portrait of Panahi – and how his creativity and imagination can both set him free, and yet act as a prison itself. Closed Curtain isn’t the type of film that Panahi would make if he were to have complete creative freedom. He can imagine different films, but he doesn’t have the same outlet he used to have. For two films in a row, Panahi is stuck making a film in his own home because he cannot do it any other way. I would love to see Panahi make another film like The Circle or Crimson Gold or Offside again. But he can’t. He’s stuck making Closed Curtain. That makes the film interesting – but it isn’t the film Panahi should be making.

Movie Review: This is Not a Film

This is Not a Film
Directed by: Jafar Panahi & Mojtaba Mirtahmasb.

Jafar Panahi is currently serving a six year prison sentence in Iran – just because in the Iranian elections of 2009, he supported the “wrong” party.  He was convicted in late 2010 of "assembly and colluding with the intention to commit crimes against the country’s national security and propaganda against the Islamic Republic", given his six year jail sentence, and banned from making any films for 20 years. While appealing his sentence, he made This is Not a Film, over a 10 day span in March 2011, using a digital camcorder and an iPhone. The film was smuggled out of Iran in a cake, and played at Cannes in May 2011, before receiving a theatrical release in North America earlier this year. It may just be the best film Panahi has ever made.

Don’t get me wrong, I like much of Panahi’s other work – at least what I have seen. But I do not think that The Circle (2000), Crimson Gold (2003) or Offside (2006) (the three other films of his I have seen) are great films. They are all very good, but they are also a little on the simplistic side to me. In these films, Panahi never outwardly insults Iran, or its government, but their implications speak for themselves. He makes films about outsiders – often women – who are marginalized in Iranian society, and while all the films are well made, well-acted (by amateurs) and quite good, none of them rise to the level of the best work of some of his country – like Abbas Kiarostami or Asghar Farhadi. His imprisonment and ban from filmmaking however are an affront to anyone who values freedom of expression.

I mention all of this at the top of my review of This is Not a Film, because without knowing the background, you probably won’t know what to make of the film. It is a very strange film – one where boredom plays a crucial role, and overall, there is a sense of futility and resignation to the film. During the running time of the movie – a scant 75 minutes – Panahi sits in his kitchen, talks on the phone to his lawyers about his court case. He tries to read aloud from the screenplay he wanted to direct – even going as far as to map out the house he sees in his head on the floor in tape – before giving up (saying “If you can tell a movie, why would anyone make a movie?”). He feeds his lizard, and briefly watches a neighbor’s dog, until it becomes clear the lizard and the dog cannot co-exist. He re-visits his old films, telling stories of the great things in them that he did not plan. He interacts with co-director Mojtaba Mirtahmasb, arguing with him with Panahi tells him to “Cut”, and Mirtahmasb refuses, saying that Panahi cannot direct, because that would be violating his sentence, so he holds the shot longer to show that it is him directing, not Panahi. The film ends with a very strange sequence where a building manager comes to Panahi’s apartment to collect his garbage, and then Panahi follows him into the elevator, and accompanies him down, one floor at a time, where he collects garbage from the other tenants, before reaching the street – at which point the young man walks away and Panahi records the fireworks being set off around the city, even though they have been banned by the government (apparently because they have nothing to do with Islam).

This is Not a Film is an appropriate title for the movie. It really isn’t a film – at least not in terms of what we think of as a film. Panahi is careful not to directly violate his ban – he doesn’t write a screenplay, which he is banned from doing, and he doesn’t act, also banned, but he simply reads aloud from his screenplay. He doesn’t give an interview, which is banned, but simply films himself talking – to himself and others. He doesn’t “direct”, he just shoots video. Yet, it takes extraordinary courage for Panahi to even do these things. Who else when hoping to get his prison sentence and ban on movie making would do this? Once again, Panahi never directly criticizes the Iranian government or their legal system for doing to him what they have done. He doesn’t have to. This is Not a Film speaks for itself. Whatever the hell This is Not a Film is, it is one of a kind.

The Best Movies I've Never Seen Before: The Circle (2000)

The Circle (2000) ***
Directed by: Jafar Panahi.
Written by: Kambuzia Partovi.
Starring: Nargess Mamizadeh (Nargess), Maryiam Palvin Almani (Arezou), Mojgan Faramarzi (Mojgan - Prostitute), Elham Saboktakin (Elham - Nurse), Monir Arab (Monir - Ticket Seller), Maedeh Tahmasebi (Maedeh), Maryam Shayegan (Parveneh), Solmaz Panahi (Solmaz), Fereshteh Sadre Orafaiy (Pari), Fatemeh Naghavi (Nayer), Ataollah Moghadas (Haji), Abbas Alizadeh (Father of Pari).

Iranian filmmaker Jafar Panahi currently sits in prison in Iran serving a six year sentence for “assembly and colluding with the intention to commit crimes against the country’s national security and propaganda against the Islamic Republic, “which essentially means criticizing Iran’s government, supporting the opposition in elections and making films critical of Iran and their human rights record. He was also banned from making any films, writing any screenplays, giving any interviews or leaving Iran for 20 years. Even though I am not a huge fan of Panahi’s films, I think every reasonable person in the world can agree that no one should go to jail for making a movie – or simply letting his views be known.

Panahi’s most famous film is 2000’s The Circle. It is a film that is extremely critical of the treatment of women in Iran, and uses several of their stories to highlight this. Taking its cue from Max Ophuls’ La Ronde, the film circles around, with one story leading to the next to the next, before we arrive back where we started.

The movie opens in a hospital where a woman has just given birth to a baby girl. But what should be happy occasion is instead a sad one – the ultrasound had indicated that the child would be a boy, and now the new child’s grandmother is worried that when her in laws find out that the child is a girl, they will want a divorce, or worse. From there, the movie spins out to tell the story of three women who have escaped from prison, their struggles to get out of town to go to one of their small villages, to the story of another former prison who has to escape from her home because her brothers want to “talk to her”, and tries to find a way to get an abortion, to the story of a mother abandoning her daughter in the hope that she will find happiness in a real family, and finally to a story of a prostitute who ends up being arrested, and going to jail where we see all the women we met in the film in one cell – including the mother whose only crime was giving birth to a girl.

Watching The Circle, it is impossible not to feel sympathy for the women that Panahi puts on the screen. For the most part, their only crime is that they are women and have decided to act like women everywhere else in the world get to behave without question. The system clearly holds them to impossibly high standards that they cannot hope to reach, while letting men do pretty much anything that they want to. Panahi uses a mix of professional and non-professional actresses in his film, but I honestly could not tell you which ones are which – they are all raw and real. Panahi’s visual style is simple yet effective – he favors long, unbroken takes, and often employs tracking shots to follow his characters. Panahi fills his screen with the contradictions of modern Iran – showing happiness in the background, while the foreground is full of pain and sorrow.

While I admire The Circle, much like I admire the other Panahi films I have seen (Crimson Gold about a mentally unstable thief and Offside about a teenage girl who wants nothing else but to see the Iran team play soccer, but cannot enter the stadium because she’s a girl), I feel somewhat similar to his films as I do to films like Paul Haggis’ Crash or the entire work of Stanley Kramer. You cannot argue with the films moral viewpoint, and yet I find these films to be too heavy-handed and preachy. Perhaps in Iran, you have to be heavy handed to get your point across, but personally, I would have preferred a little more subtly in the films. He takes his lead from the Italian neo-realist movement of post WWII, much like many Iranian filmmakers do, but unlike someone like Abbas Kiarostami, Panahi remains fixated on telling his stories and delivering a social message. At times, his characters seem more like symbols than real people.

Still, there is a lot to admire about Panahi’s films in general and The Circle specifically. He is certainly an important voice in Iranian cinema and culture. I hope at some point soon, he is released from prison, and can resume his filmmaking career. Something tells me he has more to say than what he done so far. However, as long as the prison sentence and filmmaking ban are in effect, the world is robbed of this important cinematic voice.