S & D: Iranian film

The conversation with the purse-snatcher in the second scene was pretty funny.

iranian films are HUGE in paris. there were often 10 of them in theaters at once. i had a hard time following all the new releases. inevitably the euphoria of first disocovery has worn off a bit, and i've seen a few that didn't impress me at all.

i don't think the second part of this sentence follows from the first

As does everything involved in film.

the insert to the bfi VHS?

Sadly, my video is connected wrong, so I can't tape the overwhelming feast of films that C4 have lined up.

I get a lot of lines on the screen. I'm sure it's something very simple. Perhaps one of you will know what to do. Innit.

I said I liked Ten way up there. Its now one of my least favourite films on a second viewing. It completely panders to a western liberla view of the problems of Iranian society.

anyway, the staggers rejected the article itself, which i ended up putting on a webzine somewhere, last summer. part of the ns's problem was the idea of iranian film -- like it was too far out.

and this is what bugs me: c4 saying 'the iranians are coming'. last night was the first time an AK film has been shown on ttv here. it's absurd, this timelag in film culture.

roll on the taiwanese cinema season in 2008.

I haven't seen all the Abbas K films, but they all seem to involve non-medieval things like film crews and 4x4s, and I've never felt patronised. Perhaps I should TRY HARDER.

I have Ten on a laser disc. I will watch it one day.

I like the way all these films seem to lead into other films.

I don't see anything po-mo in these films.

I found the film a bit boring though.

You were up very late, Jerry the Nipper.

I tell you what I didn't think was very good, and that's Catterick. After which I went to bed until the 1.30 yodelling practice.

I like the fact that HMV has Tinto Brass in the World Cinema section. 'All Ladies Do It' is a personal favourite of mine.

You are right about festivals, there is an awful lot of dross shown, some of it Iranian. I saw one about landmine removal and burnt-out tanks and tortoises and it was REALLY boring. The director was there to witness the slow trickle of people walking out.

I guess from a festival/distributor nexus you go with the ones you trust the programmers of. Or ones which seem to be grateful just to have enough films (Dublin seemd very good at that). There is nothing more exciting than "discovering" a film, but how much of that excitement is literally down to the discovery.

My middle east = middle ages boils down to Olive Tress etc and mobile phones seen as being out of place and the centre of some pretty lame humour. It appeals to an exoticism in the reviewer, a return to nature (all that Fanon stuff). It is probably why Samira Makhlabaf has picked refugee communities or Afghanistan as topics where these juxtapositions are probably more apparent.

On your problem on "what to see" I solve by trying to restrict myself to theatrical release. Which is as arbritrary as anything. Liking certain distributors though seems to work. I am suspicious about Artificial Eye, but rathe rlike Metrodome/Tartan.

(I think its interesting thinking about City Of God on thsi front, which I thought was great but at no point did I think that its greatness was much to do directly with its director.)

anyway -- yeah. i think it was seeing 'city of god', and then seeing the likes of miranda sawyer repping 'the new brazilian cinema' on basis of same that sort of made me give up on keeping abreast, or doing so too closely. mainly cos i knew that in six months' time 'the new thai cinema' would be the stick with which to beat the formulaic hollywood cinema and the declining cinema of europe. i can enjoy 'city of god' now without feeling that, not knowing anything of pre-'city' cinema, i am missing out on something briliant.

i will programme a sidebar one day consisting of 'the permanent gardener', '21 grams', 'harry potter 3', and 'the ice storm' by way of demonstration of what i'm talking about.

'The Cow' is on tonight. I might stay up late. I will have to have an early evening snooze though.

I have seen a lot of pre CoG Brazilian Cinema (too much Cinema Nuovo than is strictly good for anyone*) and trust me with minor exceptions you ain't missing much.

Surely if Dogme taught us one thing, even when there is a specific artistic movement and manifesto stuff comes out with widely different qualities, so when the only link people have is nationality...

*ie Two films at least

The thing is, I really don't think this selection or Iranian films is represntative of what is generally on offer in Iran. Paris maybe...

https://www.vulture.com/2022/04/asghar-farhadi-sued-plagiarism-a-hero.html

Masihzadeh claimed Farhadi made her sign a document in 2019, before he began production on A Hero, stating that he owned the idea for All Winners, All Losers, which she did “under great pressure.” Farhadi’s lawyer does not dispute the document, saying it clarified that “he was the one who proposed the idea and the plot of the documentary.” His lawyer said he researched the story on his own, based on media coverage; Masihzadeh claims there was little coverage of the incident that inspired her documentary. Relatedly, Farhadi claimed the main character of A Hero, Rahim, is dissimilar to the real-life subject of All Winners, All Losers. One former student from 2011 additionally told The Hollywood Reporter he believed Farhadi made a film based off one of his projects, but did not plan to sue because he “is a genius filmmaker.”

An interview with Farhadi also on Vulture links to this interesting article: https://www.latimes.com/local/great-reads/la-me-c1-tarof-20150706-story.html

It seems that the star of About Elly, Golshifteh Farahani, is mostly making films in exile in France these days, including a really terrible love triangle thing I recently tried to watch called Two Friends directed by Alfred's crush Louis Garrel.

Not the same film, but
Never Coming to a Theater Near You - Arthouse Cinema 2016

Louis Garrel's directorial debut may be the worst feature i've endured in the last several years

― we can be heroes just for about 3.6 seconds (Dr Morbius), Monday, March 7, 2016 2:18 PM (six years ago)

Think my take on Farhadi is close to Bilge Ebiri’s.

really liked About Elly

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2022/11/07/did-the-oscar-winning-director-asghar-farhadi-steal-ideas

Also this: https://www.indiewire.com/2022/10/jafar-panahi-and-mohammad-rasoulof-tear-gassed-in-iran-prison-fire-1234772987/

Search: The Runner!

I hadn't heard about the plagiarism case prior to reading that article, but it seemed quite damning. Although this quote from an erstwhile collaborator makes sense:

"If you ask me—as a person who hasn’t seen either ‘A Hero’ or the documentary but just knows the guy extremely well—this is not plagiarism. Asghar is far too intelligent and interesting as an artist, as a writer, to do something like that. This is him wanting control over authorship. It’s a character flaw.”

Everyone in the article is just like "Look, I don't care that you took my idea, just acknowledge that you did it." And he won't.

Found that article totally fascinating for the same reason, the fact that other figures in the industry were so willing to go on the record to basically say, "Haha, yeah, of course he passed off her work as 100% his creation, that's just how he is."

Didn’t really read that article until just now and it was indeed fascinating and kind of painful to read. To me it is as if the hero with the “broken smile” of The Hero is kind of an obvious DO U SEE? shadow self for Farhadi.

Bahram Beyzaeie's Downpour, on the third World Cinema Project box, is a really excellent comedy.

Are you saying that because you know he edited The Runner?

New Jafar Panahi is good, believe the hype!

Panahi on hunger strike. This is sickening!

it's pretty horrible.

Apparently he's just been released from jail?

Great news!

Now what about Mohammad Rasoulof?

Rasoulof has apparently been out for a month: https://www.theguardian.com/film/2023/feb/03/iranian-film-maker-jafar-panahi-released-on-bail-after-hunger-strike

About to watch Samira Makhmalbaf’s THE APPLE and came across this about her dad’s little film school which she attended:
https://www.sensesofcinema.com/2002/filmmaker-profiles/makhmalbaf/

Not an Iranian film, but Golshifteh Farahani is really good in the film known in English as ARAB BLUES.

Movie is kind of broad and she plays a French-Tunisian rather thn a French-Irani but her perfomance is still good.

Just finally watched Rasoulof’s There Is No Evil before it leaves MUBI. It is indeed very long but the first and last sections both make it worth your time.