These past couple of weeks, as I was catching up on several fantastic Iranian films, I found myself thinking about what I enjoy so much about watching world cinema. Many in the West hold a number of negative stereotypes about Iran, and those not familiar with world cinema might be surprised to learn that since the early 1990s Iran has been producing some of the most interesting films in the world.
Exploring another nation’s films can help us to challenge our preconceptions about other cultures and to better understand one another. As Iranian director Asghar Farhadi noted in a statement prepared for his second Academy Award win:
“Filmmakers can turn their cameras to capture shared human qualities and break stereotypes of various nationalities and religions. They create empathy between us and others — an empathy that we need today more than ever.”
The question of representation on film and the need for empathy are driving forces of the Iranian national cinema. Establishing the style known as Iranian Neorealism, their films are largely defined by the use of non-actors, filming in the streets and other real locations rather than on sets, and a fourth-wall breaking self-awareness. It is the last of these that sets Iranian cinema apart from other neorealist traditions. Many Iranian films break from the narrative to show the actors and crew shooting the film; this metatextual commentary serves to blur the distinction between fiction and documentary filmmaking, emphasizing cinema’s artifice.
Below is my list of five of the most essential Iranian films.
1. The House is Black (1963)
While Iranian cinema reached its golden age in the 1990s and 2000s, there were a number of great films made during the two decades leading up to the Iranian Revolution in 1979. The greatest of these films, and one of the best Iranian films of all time, is Forugh Farrokhzad’s documentary The House is Black. Considered one of Iran’s greatest poets, Farrokhzad takes a lyrical, tone-poem approach to her subject, a leper colony.
The film is comparable to Alain Resnais’s holocaust documentary Night and Fog, in that it is not concerned with giving the audience a coherent narrative or making a call to action. Instead the film seeks to evoke a mood from the audience. Farrokhzad juxtaposes shocking images of the disfigured faces and bodies of those in the colony with readings from the Old Testament and her own poetry. While she does briefly point out that leprosy is a condition caused by poverty, and that it is treatable with proper medical care, she is more interested in making the viewer feel the isolation and the suffering within the colony than a dry recitation of medical facts.
If it’s not obvious, the film isn’t for everyone. Not only are there some difficult images in the colony, but the lack of a narrative focus could be frustrating for some viewers. Still, it is a powerful artistic achievement; a cinematic poem that will move anyone willing to give it a try.
2. Close-Up (1990)
Few would argue that the current golden age of Iranian cinema began with Abbas Kiarostami’s Close-Up. The film combines the neorealism that had been present in films before the revolution with the bold metatextual structure that would come to define much of Iranian cinema moving forward.
Close-Up has a simple, if odd, premise. The film is a documentary that tells the story of Hossain Sabzian, a film lover who pretends to be the great Iranian director Mohsen Makhmalbaf in order to…well, that’s a bit less clear. Sabzian meets a woman on a bus and decides, spontaneously, to pretend that he is Makhmalbaf. The woman’s son is interested in film and because of this Sabzian gets invited into their home under the guise of collaborating on a film with her son. Eventually Sabzian is exposed and the bulk of the film chronicles the events of his trial.
The film’s structure is what sets it apart. Kiarostami reenacts several events leading up to Sabzian’s arrest, and in these sequences the participants are played by their real-life counterparts; for example, Sabzian plays himself tricking the woman on the bus, who is also played by herself. It’s a fascinating twist that plays with our expectations about what documentary and fiction films should be. Errol Morris’s pioneered the use of reenactments in his 1988 documentary The Thin Blue Line. His decision was considered controversial, but even he did not go so far as to stage his reenactments with the original participants. This step further blurs the line between fiction and documentary in Kiarostami’s film.
If you like Close-Up, I would also recommend Kiarostami’s Taste of Cherry (1997). It is also a deceptively complex film that plays with the boundaries between fact and fiction.
3. A Moment of Innocence (1996)
Mohsen Makhmalbaf, the filmmaker impersonated by Sabzian in Close-Up, is the director of the next film on this list, A Moment of Innocence. Also ostensibly a documentary, the film is even more complex than Kiarostami’s film. On one level, it is a documentary about whether or not a film based on historical events can ever represent the truth.
In the film, Makhmalbaf seeks out the police officer who he stabbed as a teenage activist in the 1970s so that they can tell the story of their violent encounter. The director works with the police officer, played by Mirhadi Tayebi, to cast the younger versions of themselves. Makhmalbaf gives the policeman the responsibility of directing the young actor who is meant to play his younger self. The policeman complains often about the casting process, wanting to play himself as Sabzian did in Close-Up, but he eventually agrees to work with the younger man.
As the film goes on, it becomes more and more clear that Makhmalbaf and the policeman regret their previous encounter. Both act confrontationally towards their young actors. Makhmalbaf mocks his actor’s idealism, and Tayebi pushes his to be more aggressive. Both are angry at their younger selves, and this anger clouds their ability to accurately represent the past. It is one of the best meditations on historical filmmaking I have ever seen.
While the original confrontation between Makhmalbaf and the policeman ended in violence, the anger both of them still carry pushes them to make the confrontation between the young actors even more violent; the policeman instructs his actor to avoid getting distracted and stabbed as he did, and instead shoot anyone who tries to talk to him. The film is interested in how the older generation forces its own resentments and regrets upon the younger generation, continuing a cycle of violence. The final still frame of the film is a powerful message of hope for breaking this cycle.
4. About Elly (2009)
Director Asghar Farhadi is the most conventional director on this list by Western standards. His films follow standard narrative structures, his characters have clear arcs, and he lacks the metatextual analysis present in most of his contemporaries’ films. He has enjoyed great success recently, winning two of the Best Foreign Language Film Oscars of the past 6 years (one for 2016’s The Salesman and one for 2012’s A Separation). Despite his wins, however, I believe that his best film is the earlier About Elly.
Because the film is built around multiple deceptions, it is important to not know too much going in, so I will keep it to this: Elly is a school teacher who is invited on a family vacation with one of her student’s parents, Sepidah, who intends to set Elly up with a recently divorced family friend. The film shifts in tone when Elly disappears and the rest of the group needs to decide how to deal with the fallout from the lies and half-truths that had brought her there.
The film is a fascinating character drama that never grows dull. The central mystery of the story is engaging, but it is really the character dynamics that make this such a compelling film to watch. Golshifteh Farahani gives such a powerful performance as Sepidah that just watching her on screen is a pleasure, regardless of whatever is going on with the plot (which is compelling in its own right).
If you like About Elly, you should definitely check out Farhadi’s Oscar-winning films, but this is my personal favorite.
5. Taxi (2015)
Charged with threatening national security and Siáhnamá’í (films that show Iran or the Iranian government in a negative light), Panahi has been on house arrest since 2011 and is banned from making movies for the next 20 years; this has not slowed him down. He has directed three films in this time. All of his post-arrest films have unique structures and styles, owing partially to the style of Iranian Neorealism, and partially to the creative restrictions Panahi is working under. He has a number of great films; This is Not a Film (2011) and his earlier film, The Mirror (1997) are both worth excellent and worth checking out, but Taxi (2015) is my favorite.
The film is a work of fiction, but blurs that distinction by having Panahi play himself. In the film, Panahi has snuck out from under house arrest and is driving around the streets of Tehran disguised as a taxi driver. He picks up various passengers, including his former movie bootlegger, a human rights attorney, and his niece. With them he has series of conversations about social justice, filmmaking, and the role of art in society.
The film’s most effective segment comes when Panahi’s niece (played by herself) asks Panahi for his help in completing a school film project. She tells him that her teacher warned her about the dangers of “sordid realism,” which is exactly what her uncle had been arrested for. They discuss the philosophy of filmmaking and the task of capturing reality she takes footage of the streets of Tehran. Eventually, she captures footage of a poor boy stealing some money. At first she asks him to give the money back so that she can film it and avoid her film getting labeled as Siáhnamá’í, but she later feels sorry for him when she captures footage of him searching through a dumpster.
It is in this moment that Panahi touches on the empathy that cinema can bring us. The niece is able to connect with and understand the suffering of the boy through her camera, which has caught something she may have missed on her own. As Farhadi pointed out, it is this potential to gain empathy that makes exploring world cinema so rewarding.
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