Some notes on the statements of filmmakers like Kiarostami, M Makhmalbaf and Marjane Satrapi in the current crisis:
http://thephoenix.com/BLOGS/outsidetheframe/archive/2009/06/17/iran-losing-direction.aspx
― Dr Morbius, Thursday, 18 June 2009 13:07 (fourteen years ago) link
Kiarostami speaks out on the arrests of Jafar Panahi and Mahmoud Rasoulof:
http://thelede.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/03/09/iranian-filmmaker-speaks-out-on-prisoners/
― Fusty Moralizer (Dr Morbius), Wednesday, 10 March 2010 18:19 (fourteen years ago) link
did anyone see no one knows about persian cats?
― egregious apostrophising (schlump), Friday, 26 March 2010 02:41 (fourteen years ago) link
Reading the Kiarostami open letter about Panahi was somehow painful: a true tightrope walking exercise.
― Marco Damiani, Friday, 26 March 2010 09:36 (fourteen years ago) link
Close-Up gets a week's revival in NYC today.
― kind of shrill and very self-righteous (Dr Morbius), Friday, 26 March 2010 11:49 (fourteen years ago) link
"did anyone see no one knows about persian cats?"
I did. It's great.
― Fig On A Plate Cart (Alex in SF), Sunday, 9 May 2010 23:10 (thirteen years ago) link
man holy shit
― schlump, Monday, 20 December 2010 19:58 (thirteen years ago) link
ugh that's horrible
― =(^ • ‿‿ • ^)= (corey), Monday, 20 December 2010 20:05 (thirteen years ago) link
Yeah that breaks my heart. Let's try to get him out of there!
― Kevin John Bozelka, Monday, 20 December 2010 20:51 (thirteen years ago) link
if anyone needs a helicopter jailbreak it's him
― =(^ • ‿‿ • ^)= (corey), Monday, 20 December 2010 21:01 (thirteen years ago) link
Awful, but I suppose not terribly shocking, news. I've only seen Offside and Crimson Gold but they're both amazing.
― Simon H., Tuesday, 21 December 2010 00:30 (thirteen years ago) link
absolutely love Offside, The White Balloon was v nice, The Circle was dece. this outcome is predictably sad.
― zvookster, Tuesday, 21 December 2010 00:41 (thirteen years ago) link
Pretty incredible and sad, especially since so many great Iranian directors have benefited directly from state support (at least to an extent).
― Josh in Chicago, Tuesday, 21 December 2010 04:46 (thirteen years ago) link
sadly not a surprise
― kind of shrill and very self-righteous (Dr Morbius), Tuesday, 21 December 2010 04:54 (thirteen years ago) link
yes, not quite sure how this is 'incredible', but it is awful
― moholy-nagl (history mayne), Tuesday, 21 December 2010 09:04 (thirteen years ago) link
nader and simin, a separation is pretty masterly, & pretty distressing. it seems on reflection like it was a labyrinthine, finely worked storyline, in which the foundations for the next turn or digression were quietly laid in each scene, but it doesn't seem flashy or over-worked while watching, just complicated and human. w/great performances from kids (& from leila hatami) & the sort of exhilarating peripheral look at urban iran you get in panahi's stuff (which it reminded me of, some, in its humanity and its gaze, but i couldn't work out if that was just because it was iran onscreen).
― devoted to boats (schlump), Sunday, 3 July 2011 19:59 (twelve years ago) link
Best new foreign release I've seen since 4 months, 3 weeks.... What schlump says - finely worked. Also shot in a way that provokes all these ambiguities, plenty of obscuring in the shooting (you don't really get a good look at the distance between the door and the stairs) and plot (what happened to the money?).
Another fine perf was the grandfather - the shots of him looking - introducing this notion that he knew what was going on and what everyone was up to. Whether intentional or not I found it v powerful. Similarly the 11 year old that isn't spared - she learns to lie, and probably to repeat the flaws so evident in the adults.
For a near two hour film of very heated arguments between people it held my attention fairly easily - with a sorta flagging at the end: takes ages to get to a truth as to what happened then rushing off to a conlusion in the last 15 mins. Seemed unbalanced to me.
― xyzzzz__, Saturday, 20 August 2011 19:43 (twelve years ago) link
With the shots of the stairs and the door it didn't give you much for a while. Sorta cleverly delays.
― xyzzzz__, Saturday, 20 August 2011 19:46 (twelve years ago) link
this isn't ~spoilerish~, but fyi don't read if you haven't seen a separation--
oh god yeah, the grandfather. man. this film. yeah some of the performances are radiant, cf the kid. i feel like its success in stirring empathy and feeling towards the characters is exemplified by the whole stairwell thing - i think at distinct points i was specifically identifying with and feeling viscerally defensive of each party, there - well he was pushing her out, she left the old guy!, & then, he pushed her, he's straight up lying. & to resolve it that way - that he guesses he knew, but that in that moment he didn't?, it just feels like such a mature, complicated, real thing to try to represent that could seem like a cop-out.
i think i felt compelled throughout, i forget. have you seen about elly? i think i remember hearing that it was a little maybe unambitious or light, but i probably oughtta check it.
― sweatpants life trajectory (schlump), Saturday, 20 August 2011 19:49 (twelve years ago) link
i'm so annoyed i missed this in glasgow. friends were raving about it too.
― jed_, Saturday, 20 August 2011 19:51 (twelve years ago) link
it was nice to see, b/c intense & absorbing & because of a really beautiful green kitchen, but i don't think it'll all evaporate on a small screen.
i could watch iranian films all day i think (& i oughtta). psyched for the next rasoulof, whenever it surfaces.
― sweatpants life trajectory (schlump), Saturday, 20 August 2011 19:55 (twelve years ago) link
Haven't seen About Elly
but that in that moment he didn't?, it just feels like such a mature, complicated, real thing to try to represent that could seem like a cop-out.
otm. A lot of the film was v 'universal'. The iranian system is indicted for not providing support: so much argument as there aren't any intermediaries. And yet his admission that he knew of her pregnancy but not at that moment might have landed him in trouble anywhere.
― xyzzzz__, Saturday, 20 August 2011 20:02 (twelve years ago) link
"because of a really beautiful green kitchen"
i have to see this!
― jed_, Saturday, 20 August 2011 20:04 (twelve years ago) link
oh well, i- i don't want you to envisage some kinda insane jodorowsky-esque centrepiece in an entirely green kitchen; it's just there are these scenes in a kitchen tiled with these pure-green tiles & it was really arresting to me, sorta - to backtrack to what i said before - the same way that getting a look at any of the houses/streetscenes are compelling just as being a neat visual insight into another country. i think i saw it not long after i saw cassavetes' minnie & moskowitz, which has a great, '70s pink kitchen scene, so i was maybe especially attuned to this sorta thing & it could perhaps pass by unnoticed. just pretty is all, and representative of the film's attractive deep tones.
― sweatpants life trajectory (schlump), Saturday, 20 August 2011 20:13 (twelve years ago) link
i wasn't thinking crazy kitchen. i'm looking forward to seeing it ;)
― jed_, Saturday, 20 August 2011 20:15 (twelve years ago) link
artificial eye, i guess
― sweatpants life trajectory (schlump), Saturday, 20 August 2011 20:17 (twelve years ago) link
wanna see the new panahi so bad
tape store (if you are here), were you putting on the new rasoulof film? have you seen it?
― and my soul said you can't go there (schlump), Saturday, 17 September 2011 18:44 (twelve years ago) link
Panahi film has been picked up for US distrib
― incredibly middlebrow (Dr Morbius), Saturday, 17 September 2011 19:15 (twelve years ago) link
yeah i saw, w/'coming soon'. are you seeing at nyff?
― and my soul said you can't go there (schlump), Saturday, 17 September 2011 19:17 (twelve years ago) link
yep
― incredibly middlebrow (Dr Morbius), Saturday, 17 September 2011 19:20 (twelve years ago) link
aw. i should hush & watch the couple i haven't seen, but knowing a little about it - even the limits of equipment, n/m movement or censorship - has me excited. everyone everywhere is loving a separation, also, pleasingly, & also the other iranian thing from sundance - coincidences, maybe?
― and my soul said you can't go there (schlump), Saturday, 17 September 2011 19:30 (twelve years ago) link
Love Still Life
― xyzzzz__, Friday, 18 November 2011 23:56 (twelve years ago) link
Saw it years ag on C4, but end up think about it every now and again. iirc The story is too simple to have a plot (a bit Tokyo Story-y at times), or to have much of theme (capitalism destroying the old ways felt tacked on) but the still-ness of the image, the acting/staging just sucks you in. The final shot takes you breath away.
― xyzzzz__, Saturday, 19 November 2011 00:04 (twelve years ago) link
Pleased to see some mention of Bahman Ghobadi on this thread. I have only seen Persian Cats, Turtles Can Fly and A Time For Drunken Horses, but they were all fantastic.
I rewatched The Apple last night and it is such a strange, wonderful movie.
― dollar eye twinkling (admrl), Tuesday, 28 February 2012 13:35 (twelve years ago) link
http://hyperallergic.com/47086/censored-iranian-filmmaker-shoots-film-entirely-on-iphones/
Never saw this
― curmudgeon, Tuesday, 28 February 2012 13:46 (twelve years ago) link
I saw that, it is great
― dollar eye twinkling (admrl), Tuesday, 28 February 2012 17:08 (twelve years ago) link
hugely sad i couldnt see that at tiff
― A Little Princess btw (s1ocki), Tuesday, 28 February 2012 17:08 (twelve years ago) link
it's just coming out theatrically?, at least in the us & uk
the apple kills. it would make a good double bill w/poto & cabengo. i watched it w/some friends, once, & the turnaround from its first twenty minutes, which are in all senses of the words hard to watch, & seemed to just subdue and depress the room, to the kinda errant jubilance of the rest, was amazing.
― john-claude van donne (schlump), Tuesday, 28 February 2012 17:41 (twelve years ago) link
Panahi out in April, can't wait.
As is The Apple, watched that over Xmas - good call on Poto & Cabengo, read a rev of the Gorin DVDs so will be on it at some point.
― xyzzzz__, Tuesday, 28 February 2012 21:49 (twelve years ago) link
All of the Gorin films are great (even My Crasy Life, which gets a bad rep). I saw THIS IS NOT A FILM at AFI Fest
― love, light, and walkabout-thinking (admrl), Tuesday, 28 February 2012 22:10 (twelve years ago) link
Some legal background re A Separation's plot:
http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/culture/2012/02/a-separation-iran-law.html
― Literal Facepalms (Dr Morbius), Friday, 2 March 2012 15:46 (twelve years ago) link
Thx for the link Morbs
― xyzzzz__, Friday, 2 March 2012 18:13 (twelve years ago) link
Yes, interesting article.
― MrDasher, Friday, 2 March 2012 18:34 (twelve years ago) link
thank you for that link.
a separation is really good. i can't think of another film where the feelings and stakes and motivations of so many characters were so complex, at times obscure, and seemingly constantly shifting. totally riveting, even though i don't know that i'll ever be able to sort it out. i can see why it got a surprise nomination for best original screenplay. it's a very clever film. but also an intellectually challenging one, i think.
― flesh, the devil, and a wolf (wolf) (amateurist), Friday, 2 March 2012 23:27 (twelve years ago) link
SPOILER I guess
did anyone else think it was a dodge to keep a certain traffic incident from the audience?
― Literal Facepalms (Dr Morbius), Saturday, 3 March 2012 02:00 (twelve years ago) link
I was kinda annoyed by the reveal, but I guessed correctly that something had happened because of the amount of time dwelled in that traffic.
― Stockhausen's Ekranoplan Quartet (Elvis Telecom), Saturday, 3 March 2012 02:10 (twelve years ago) link
That did cross my mind.At the time of the traffic scene, when it just cut to the next scene, I thought, "Interesting that they didn't show the end of that situation", and just kind of felt relieved at its apparent resolution, and then later when it was revealed thought, "Oh THAT'S why they didn't show it." It did make it seem less interesting that they cut away from the scene, because the reason for it was now obvious. I am not sure how I feel about it-how would it have played out if we had seen it and had known all along? I suppose her claim never seemed that plausible to me, but would it have made a difference anyway?
― MrDasher, Saturday, 3 March 2012 02:16 (twelve years ago) link
So for me I guess, it did feel like a bit of a cheat, but it would have felt more like a cheat had I felt the movie would not have worked without it. It was just a little disappointing.
― MrDasher, Saturday, 3 March 2012 02:42 (twelve years ago) link
i don't know about "cheat," obviously the director wanted to sustain a greater ambivalence about the character of the housemaid and i think that's OK. there is a pattern of suppressed information in the film, but that's obviously the most flagrant example.
what an interesting film. i'm still thinking about it constantly a few days later.
i'm gonna track down this dude's earlier films. i've heard fantastic things re. "About Elly."
― flesh, the devil, and a wolf (wolf) (amateurist), Sunday, 4 March 2012 00:47 (twelve years ago) link
Yeah, I'm not really sure. I would like to see it again and see how it comes across to me.
― MrDasher, Sunday, 4 March 2012 01:57 (twelve years ago) link