This is the first 900+ words of an essay I wrote about Iranian cinema in June of 2000. It’s odd to look back at this essay written a decade ago, especially in light of current events. Though I am not interested in the politics of other countries, but the art and humanity. We must not forget that all countries possess their share of humanity, the arts and the human spirit. Cinema is a universal language and speaks directly to the heart.
Life Rendered
When Iranian filmmaker Mohsen Makhmalbaf’s film Gabbeh screened at the Seattle International Film Festival in 1997, a line of festival attendees circled the block in hopes of gaining admission into a sold-out screening. At the time, I did not understand what the frenzy was about, but a few months later when I attended a public screening of Gabbeh with friends, I became a devout fan of Iran’s contemplative and lyrical cinema. Makhmalbaf won me over with his fable about a young rug maker who laments her father’s interference with her intended marriage to a stranger who follows her nomadic family across a desert.
Gabbeh impressed me as its story unwound at a leisurely pace while the camera eye focused on the painterly tableau of the natural world. Unlike fast-pace American films, Makhmalbaf’s film crept from one gorgeous moment to the next, revealing the exotic locals filled with goats, sheep and nomadic people who still wove rugs to tell stories. And then the innovative Iranian director blended the stories revealed in the rugs with the story of the young maiden Gabbeh and her quest for marriage. Free from histrionics and a complicated plot, this simple film expressed one woman’s angst as she dealt with her father’s law and a disappearing way of life.
I saw this film at a time when the high tech industry in the Seattle area begun heating up. Seattle had transformed from a laid back city of musicians, artists, students and middle class families to a metropolis of software millionaires. Soon the airwaves were jammed with cell phones and laptop computers and the freeway was jammed with sport utility vehicles and Jaguars. A city of reasonable rent saw the housing market shoot through the roof. A home that sold for $100,000 in the 1980’s now sold for $300,000 and the studio apartment that once rented for $400.00 a month now rented for $800.00. A line between the haves and the have-nots had been drawn in a dramatic fashion and a new kingdom of lords and surfs had been created. The Seattle sold its soul and joined the rat race leading its inhabitants into a shallow world based on stock prices and mass consumerism. A new Silicon Valley had been produced and the natural world replaced by a highly sought after plastic one based on virtual reality.
Fortunately, Seattle boasts several landmark theatres and two art houses where the city’s remaining artists, intellects and students could escape the stress of paying the rent by watching contemplative cinema from around the world. It is within this dichotomy that I discovered Iran’s poetic and colorful cinema. The worlds of filmmakers Abbas Kiarostami, Mohsen Makhmalbaf and Iranian actor-turned-director Majid Majidi exposed themselves to me at a time when I had forgotten how to live in the moment and reflect on the beauty of the natural world. More than ever I desired a simple story told in an eloquent style and I found that desire fulfilled when watching sun-drenched Iranian films.
Two years later I watched another amazingly simple story unfold in Majid Majidi’s The Children of Heaven. Majidi told a story of two impoverished Iranian children and a pair of lost shoes. The Iranian director did not pander to sentimentalism when telling a story through children’s eyes and the gifted actor turned director managed to extract impressive performances from his non-professional actors. Again, I found myself attracted to the exotic Tehran locale, the film’s simple story line and exquisite photography.
Of course Majidi’s film plot possessed suspense and unusual twists leading viewers on an unexpected path. Boy picks up little sister’s only pair of shoes then boy loses shoes thus upsetting his little sister. Boy comes up with an unusual solution of sharing his only pair of shoes with his sister until they find the lost shoes, but all does not go well. The story then takes an unexpected turn in which the boy enters a foot race and unlike an American hero type film, the boy is unhappy with winning first prize. The ending of the film also ends on an ironic note free of tearful embraces and familial happiness
The irony that I discovered tranquillity in films from a country that the US considers overly aggressive does not escape me. I recall seeing news footage of the Shah’s regime growing up and I am aware of the paranoia regarding Moslem terrorist from Arab countries that resides in the US. And while I do not promote the mistreatment of women in Arab countries or the Iranian government’s censorship policies in regard to Iranian films, I do acknowledge a different view of Iran told to me by Iranian filmmakers. The directors for the most part tell stories through children’s eyes and through the eyes of the innocent bystander, I have seen life’s little dramas mirror the world’s larger tragedies and triumphs.
In fact, the films of Abbas Kiarostami, Majidi and Makhmalbaf have been my saving grace and I know that I am not alone in saying this. The writer/director’s extraordinary talent for stripping unnecessary plot points and over wrought drama from their films leads viewer to the core of the characters’ stories. The stories, but not always are told through the eyes of children, perhaps to keep things simple or to take our adult consciousness back to childhood innocence. Children know how to live in the moment; they see beauty in ordinary objects that adults choose to ignore and their seemingly insignificant problems mirror adult politics as well as, social interactions. Often the adults (with the exception of teachers) ignore the children’s problems or refuse to listen to what the children have to say forcing the children to live in a world made-up of other children and child-like adults (This tends to be universal in scope).
Part 2 coming up
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