In their films, Iranian filmmakers go beyond the darkness of Parda to delve deep into the hearts and minds of women, exploring the synthesis of inner courage and infinite resilience.
If cinema mirrors society’s cracks in the same way that literature does, modern Iran lives 24/7 in a cinematic reality. If mourning is a private experience of pain, not so in Iran these days, where the death toll of peaceful protesters, especially young women, rises hourly, with thousands convicted in prison. .
This includes women dancing (along with men), singing, shouting slogans, writing graffiti and poems on walls, tearing down walls between male and female students in classrooms, building bonfires, and holding hands. or twirling, cutting hair in public, waving the hijab, as a symbol of resistance at pedestrian crossings across the country, like a movie unfolding before your eyes. Funerals and mass mourning on the 40th day have become ritual landmarks. .
On September 13, while walking in Tehran with his brother, Masa was arrested by the notorious moral police, who accused him of not wearing the hijab properly. Three days later she fell into a coma and died. On her October 26, the 40th day since Amini’s murder, police told her Kurdish family to refrain from mourning for her. As a result, her mother issued a public plea asking everyone not to come to her grave on her 40th day of mourning.
cracked mirror record
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On her grave, with barren hills visible in the distance, protesters wrote, “Martha is not dead, she is alive.” On the day she was buried, the women stripped off their hijabs and cried out, “She’s alive, she’s not dead,” as their collective cries and tears suffocated the arid landscape. Despite the appeals of their mothers and huge police barricades, thousands of people paid their respects, stood up for justice, and defied the mighty state machinery.
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It became a way to magically recreate this theatrical spectacle of mass mourning and defiance in Iran. Be it the murder of teenager Nika, the crushing of her head, or the murder of 20-year-old Hadith Najafi by cops. She had her golden ponytail secured with a rubber band and her hijab ditched before joining a peaceful protest. I am immersed in an experience that makes me
Between bravery and resilience, between unseen reality and expressed life, between overt and hidden suffocation, between thought and practice, the classic kaleidoscope of Iranian cinema often features women as protagonists. Behind and in front of the camera, their first Lord of the Head song in a long time. Iranian filmmakers such as Abbas Kiarostami, Jafar Panahi (62), Majid Majidi (63), Asghar Farhadi (50), or the House of Mahmalbaf, home to brilliant female filmmakers, are women’s hearts. Deep inside and outside the walls of the house, beyond the darkness of Parda, they have explored the mind, longing, the synthesis of despair and optimism, dreams and fantasies, their inner courage and infinite resilience. rice field. In film after film, they have documented Cracked Mirrors, the film of Iran’s incredible women.
Magnificent rivers of women’s repressed fears and anger
The critically acclaimed episodic film The Day I Became a Woman (2004) is a superb script by director Marje Meshkini and another great filmmaker, Mohsen Makhmalbaf (both in exile), featuring three films. There are stories, each a current crescendo of women’s repressed anxieties and rages that flow like grand rivers across Iran’s alleys and byways.
Episode 2, “Ahoo,” centers on Ahoo (Shabnam Toloui), a young woman wearing a burqa who participates in a cycle race event. landscape, and dozens of women cycling behind her. Her husband is chasing her on her horse. A brazen symbol of masculine masculinity and power compared to her humble cycle. He is furious: “If you don’t get off right away, I’ll deal with it right away…”
Naked men are chasing her on horseback. Get down and take care of your life.” She doesn’t care. She pedals fast, her hijab blowing in the wind, and she continues the race with her beautiful face clad in the sheer colors of liberation and rebellion.
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Samira Makhmalbaf, 42, has made inventive films in difficult circumstances, often taking big risks. Her film At Five in the Afternoon (2003), shot in devastated Afghanistan with a woman in shackles, is like a reminder of the past and future of her native Iran. The film depicts Norge, a schoolgirl who is being sent to a religious school, sneaks into an all-girls school, doubts everything, and discovers the liberation of her knowledge. In fact, she hides her secret dream. I want to be president of Afghanistan. Samira once said, “Through my films, I want to reduce the pain of humanity. There are very cruel things in this world.”
When Forbidden Becomes Paradise
Marjane Satrapi, 53, was a girl when the Shah was overthrown and religious fundamentalists took over. She was a rebellious child, wearing jeans and her T-her shirt with rebellious messages and openly disregarding the dress code mandated by the new government led by Ayatollah Khomeini. So her parents took her to Vienna when she was 14 years old.
Still rebellious, she refused to accept “deportation” to a different culture and returned to Iran. She was sent off again. She then began her path as an artist, filmmaker, illustrator and author of children’s books. She is currently based in Paris. Her graphics Her novel Persepolis (2008) depicted the political and cultural context during the Shah’s reign, freedom in the West, the suffocation of patriarchy and the transition to oppression under the new Islamic regime. It has become a modern classic. world literature. Her graphics Adapted from her novel, the film was a huge success worldwide, but like most great Iranian films, it is banned in her country.
In a December 2007 interview, Satrapi said: You want it when they ban it. I thought disco was the worst place in the world, but when it’s banned, it becomes paradise…”
The great actress Catherine Deneuve, 79, best known for her surreal films by Luis Buñuel, provided the voice of the character in the film Persepolis. She said, “It’s a rare story. It’s so personal, it’s so original, it’s so powerful, it’s so simple yet so powerful. I think there is, too.” (She was referring to how Satrapi was kicked out of school in Vienna.)
dream of peaceful revolution
Among other great Iranian female filmmakers, both Marva Nabili and Rakshan Banye Temad explored the expanse of women in deep complexity with female protagonists, producing critically acclaimed films. . Iranian iconoclast Fourou Farokzad’s life was cut short when she died in a car accident in 1967 at the young age of 32. Being a masterpiece of Iranian cinema. It subverts social conventions and endows the subject with a grace that is both humanistic and unsentimental.
Jafar Panahi has created an amazing comedy spoof that has won many awards around the world. His film Offside (2006) celebrates Iranian football and cryptically points out how women are banned from watching matches in stadiums. Even if one girl dressed as a boy sneaks in, is found, is punished, is placed in a sort of detention center inside the stadium, and other female fans are captured and detained, the soldiers themselves are responsible for the entire incident. I feel ridiculous. The film ends with Iran winning the World Cup qualifying match against Bahrain with the only goal, with celebrations in the streets and policemen and girl prisoners also joining the festivities that broke out in Tehran.
An outspoken voice for democracy and free expression, Panahi is currently in prison alongside two internationally acclaimed filmmakers. Mohammad Rasoulof, 50, created “There Is No Evil,” which won the Golden Bear in Berlin two years ago. and Mostafa Alemad, creator of “Poosteh (2009).” They are his one of a large number of artists, intellectuals and thinkers currently rotting in prison. But they all seem unrepentant, stoic, rebellious, and pursuing the dream of a free and democratic Iran.
On November 9, Taraneh Alidoosti, 38, one of Iran’s most prominent actors, in an act of apparent defiance, did not wear the mandatory hijab and wore the original Kurdish version of the ‘woman’ sign. I posted an image of myself on Instagram with life, freedom ”(Zhang, Jian, Azadi) slogans support ongoing protests in Iran, where many have been killed or arrested in a crackdown. Alidusti has appeared in films by award-winning directors such as Asghar Farhadi’s ‘The Salesman’, which won Best Foreign Language Film in 2017.
The Iranian filmmakers behind the prison are like the infinitely brave Iranian women on the glorious Iranian celluloid screen. Inside an invisible closed space. And now, in the streets and crossroads, we dance, sing, fight against all odds, and celebrate the spectacle and dream of a peaceful revolution against a short, barbaric and troublesome regime.
