Iran Amok

Film: Ta’m e Guilass (Taste of Cherry); Badkonake Sefid (The White Balloon)
Format: Streaming video from Hulu+ (Cherry) and video from The Magic Flashdrive (Balloon) on laptop.

There’s a certain pleasure to be found in a number of films from other cultures. For me, one of those pleasures is noting the cultural differences and the particular cultural similarities. Based on the current world situation, it would seem more and more that there are no similarities between my own default Western culture and that of a country like Iran. And yet along comes a film like Ta’m e Guilass (Taste of Cherry) to prove that idea wrong. While the culture here is very different from mine, the moral issue that sits at the heart of this film is one that could easily be played out anywhere.

Mr. Badii (Homayoun Ershadi) is looking for someone to do a job for him. It’s not indicated at first what Badii is looking for, and there seems to be a vibe of something unsavory in what people think he wants. There is a distinctive vibe of Badii looking for sex, or at least that is the vibe picked up by the men he questions to help him. He eventually gets a young Kurdish soldier (Safar Ali Moradi) to get into his car and take a drive with him. The two speak for a bit, and it’s evident that the soldier is uncomfortable and wants to get back to his base. Eventually, Badii stops the car and gets out and tells the soldier what is on his mind.

In the Middle of Nowhere

Film: Bad Ma Ra Khahad Bord (The Wind Will Carry Us)
Format: Internet video on laptop.

When I review an Iranian film, especially one by Abbas Kiarostami, I can guarantee only that eventually James Blake Ewing of Cinema Sights will show up here eventually and comment on it. This is both a blessing and a curse. It’s a blessing because James knows what he’s talking about in general and with Kiarostami in particular. It’s a curse because he knows a crapload more than I do, so it’s also mildly embarrassing when he does. I’m kidding, but only a little—James does know his stuff and he knows Kiarostami far more than I do.

With Bad Ma Ra Khahad Bord (The Wind Will Carry Us), we get a continuation of what I have seen in Kiarostami’s work thus far. There are plenty of long takes and a story that unfolds without much regard to an actual plot. It’s simply a story, a life that unfolds on the screen in front of us. This one is less self-referential than many of his other films, or at least those that I’ve seen. There is much less commentary about the intersection of film and life here. But there is very much the sense that there is more going on here than we see on the screen.

Film Within a Film

Film: Zire Darakhatan Zeyton (Through the Olive Trees); 8 ½
Format: Internet video (Olive Trees) and streaming video from NetFlix (8 ½) on laptop.

Just as there are dozens of musicals that are essentially about musicals, there are plenty of films in the world about films, filmmakers, and the filmmaking process. For me, this is a much more interesting topic. I mean, most musicals about musicals are about the necessary pluck and determination needed to put on a show at any cost, and basically indicate that those people who are show people (and who thus smile when they are low) are particularly special and wonderful. Filmmakers might well do this, too, but they don’t seem to do it exclusively. Frequently, films about film are filled not with unashamed promotion of directors as saints, but frequently as people just as confused and lost as anyone else.

Zire Darakhatan Zeyton (Through the Olive Trees) is a film deeply connected to the idea that life and art blend into each other and overlap, often becoming confused, one for the other. I had thought that Kiarostami’s Close-Up was the most convolutedly meta film I had ever seen, but that’s only because I had not yet seen this one. This is the final film in his “Koker” trilogy. The first film, Where is the Friend’s Home?, is a treatise on civic duty and friendship. The second film, Life, and Nothing More concerns Kiarostami searching for the stars of the first film after a massive, destructive earthquake, putting a layer of meta onto the first film. This one is essentially about the filming of the second film, which is about the first film, making a meta parfait of Iranian film goodness.

[Art/Life] Imitates [Life/Art]

Film: Nema-Ye Nazdik (Close-Up)
Format: DVD from Rockford Public Library on kick-ass portable DVD player.

It’s an old saying that truth is stranger than fiction, and it’s rarely on display more completely and fully than in Abbas Kiarostami’s Nema-Ye Nazdik (Close-Up). In this film, Kiarostami traces one of the most bizarre crimes of the last couple of decades and creates from it a half-documentary, half-recreation using the actual players. It’s a blend of both art and real life unlike anything I have ever seen before. The film depicts real events and recreations of real events, each one using the actual participants playing him- or herself.

Essentially, the story is this: a man named Hossain Sabzian spends a few days in the house of the Ahankhah family. The Ahankhahs have invited him in because Sabzian has claimed that he is actually noted Iranian filmmaker Mohsen Makhmalbaf. In this role, Sabzian has told the family that he wants to use their house for his next film and use them as characters. It’s a weird little bit of fraud that, aside from his borrowing some money at one point, seems almost victimless.

After a few days, Sabzian is arrested on fraud charges and thrown in jail. Kiarostami obtained permission to film the trial, and he shows us a good portion of the proceedings in the courtroom. It is here that we get the full story of Sabzian, and it’s either a terribly heartbreaking saga or a solidly rehearsed con game. Sabzian works at a print shop, but the work is spotty. His wife has divorced him and left with one of the kids, and he now lives with his mother. He’s interested in film, and since Makhmalbaf’s appearance is relatively unknown, he saw an opportunity to be, for the first time in his life, important.

Eventually, the real Makhmalbaf makes an appearance at the end of the film, no so much confronting Sabzian as attempting to understand him and reconcile his actions with the Ahankhah family.

What’s fascinating here beyond the courtroom footage, is that Kiarostami managed to get everyone involved in the story to essentially recreate their roles in this real-life drama so that he could film events as if this were a piece of fiction. We seen meetings between Sabzian-as-Makhmalbaf in the home of the Ahankhah family discussing his films and his life. We see the journalist who broke the story (Hossain Farazmand) searching desperately for a tape recorder so that he can get comments from the arrested man. These are events that naturally transpired without the benefit of a camera crew the first time, and yet here they are.

A couple of noteworthy things stand out to me from this film. First, Kiarostami has managed to get these ordinary people, these non-actors, to recreate events in their lives seamlessly, as if they were not merely acting a rehearsed and previously experienced event. It looks real, like documentary filmmaking. The people are unself-conscious on camera and look natural, as if they are going through a real conversation. I can’t imagine this was easy, but it looks effortless here.

Equally important is the courtroom portrait of Sabzian. It’s easy to side with the judge and the general populace at the outset of the trial, because the behavior is so bizarre and so oddly focused that he appears entirely insane, at least in terms of what he did. Once he begins to explain his actions and the reasons for his keeping up the charade, he quickly stops being simply a crazy man and becomes a very human and tragic figure, the kind he claims to admire in Makhmalbaf’s films. He is so frustrated by his existence that any possible means of escape, even patently fraudulent ones, seem reasonable alternatives.

Third is the film’s otherwise evident normality. Say the word “Iran” to many an American, and you’ll be greeted with visions of rioters burning flags, women in burqas, vicious jurisprudence, and men in flowing robes and turbans. Nothing could be further from the truth. The Tehran of this film appears almost European. The judge appears to be patient and understanding enough that he wants to render both a fair verdict and to give enough time to Sabzian to explain his actions. The clothing is modern, or at least was for even the early 90s. Tehran looks normal. Who would have thought?

Nema-Ye Nazdik is a sensitive and intelligent portrayal of the nature of fame and success, and the dark places that live in virtually every human heart. If I could have a wish, it would be for another 20 minutes or so of film. It was over far too soon.

Why to watch Nema-Ye Nazdik: A fascinating combination of art and life.
Why not to watch: It’s too short.