S & D: Iranian film

I am, like many I guess, very quick to jump to a critical mindset without really justifying it. I fell asleep in Olive Trees at the cinema and saw a couple more Abbas K pastoral films along with some other Iranian films which I thought were much better. This has more than likely mutated into a seeming loathing of Abbas K, as a critical fallback to make me interesting. There are films where I love the stillness, the seeming boredom (L'Humanite springs to mind) but is that the film getting me at the right time? It is possibly a touch unfair on the film for me to go and see them when I am a bit tired, and then blame it for me falling asleep.

I think there is something remarkbaly deep yet also ridiculously banal about the quote Enrique just pulled. That will also probably depend on the moment.

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

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/

did anyone see no one knows about persian cats?

Reading the Kiarostami open letter about Panahi was somehow painful: a true tightrope walking exercise.

Close-Up gets a week's revival in NYC today.

"did anyone see no one knows about persian cats?"

I did. It's great.

man holy shit

ugh that's horrible

Yeah that breaks my heart. Let's try to get him out of there!

if anyone needs a helicopter jailbreak it's him

Awful, but I suppose not terribly shocking, news. I've only seen Offside and Crimson Gold but they're both amazing.

absolutely love Offside, The White Balloon was v nice, The Circle was dece. this outcome is predictably sad.

Pretty incredible and sad, especially since so many great Iranian directors have benefited directly from state support (at least to an extent).

sadly not a surprise

yes, not quite sure how this is 'incredible', but it is awful

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).

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.

With the shots of the stairs and the door it didn't give you much for a while. Sorta cleverly delays.

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.

i'm so annoyed i missed this in glasgow. friends were raving about it too.

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.

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.

"because of a really beautiful green kitchen"

i have to see this!

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.

i wasn't thinking crazy kitchen. i'm looking forward to seeing it ;)

artificial eye, i guess

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?

Panahi film has been picked up for US distrib

yeah i saw, w/'coming soon'. are you seeing at nyff?

yep

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?

Love Still Life

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.

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.

http://hyperallergic.com/47086/censored-iranian-filmmaker-shoots-film-entirely-on-iphones/

Never saw this

I saw that, it is great

hugely sad i couldnt see that at tiff

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.

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.

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

Some legal background re A Separation's plot:

http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/culture/2012/02/a-separation-iran-law.html

Thx for the link Morbs

Yes, interesting article.

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.