The film ends on another homage to Abbas Kiarostami, with a very long still shot on a roadway (another of those 'dirt roads'), like the ending of And Life Goes On. So it's no surprise that Panahi was Kiarostami's assistant. In his career as a filmmaker his films have often been banned in Iran and he has been arrested and imprisoned - a video diary film he made was smuggled out of prison and shown in international film festivals, where his films often won awards - that must have pleased the authorities no end. He also made a film called Offside about some girls that sneak into a football game disguised as boys, that after being banned was distributed illegally on DVD all over Iran. He had studied at The College of Cinema and TV in Tehran, where he enjoyed the films of Hitch, Hawks, Godard and Bunuel. Whether they're still on the syllabus I couldn't say.
I'm beginning to get these Iranian films. It's no surprise, considering his pedigree, that the film is full of long takes, often from within a travelling and stationary car. It's edited by his son Panah Panahi, who went on to direct Hit The Road.
We start with a young woman recording a message on her phone leaving a message for an actress - she claims to have been accepted to a drama academy but her parents have refused it and that she's begged the actress for help - and shockingly, ends up hanging herself. Distraught, the actress, who really is an actress, and a film director, who really is the film director, journey to her village to find out what went on, and experience many quirky things. But even when the girl turns up, we're worried because her brother is crazy and wants to burn her house down and the villagers all hate the girl as an 'entertainer'. So it's true to the director's themes of the injustices in his country particularly to women.
It takes place in a very rural and backward, Turkish-speaking part of the country. The bit with the bull made me laugh, as did the foreskin story. But it's quite tense right up till the ending.
The second scene, the beginning of the journey, is a continuous 10 minute single take, and we don't even see the director until the next one.
It won Best Screenplay at Cannes - though Penahi wasn't allowed to leave the country to collect it (his daughter did so on his behalf). He is the Golden Camera winner at Cannes in 1995 for The White Balloon. Other notable films include The Circle (2000), Offside (2006), This Is Not a Film (2011; a day in the life of the director himself) and Taxi (2015).
No comments:
Post a Comment