Delbaran (2001)

Delbaran (Abolfazl Jalili 2001) is one of the most beautiful films I have ever seen. Not just for the breathtaking images of the Iranian landscape (the north-eastern district of Pivey Zhan, close to the border to Afghanistan) but also for its storytelling and humour. It is one film when calling it poetic actually means something specific. There is hardly any story to speak of, there are just a series of images and events, loosely linked, that show the comings and goings of Kaim, a boy, 14 years old, during a diffuse period of time. Kaim is a refugee from Afghanistan, which he left after his house was bombed and his mother killed. His father remains, fighting against the Talibans, and his sister and grandma are also still there. But he has no wish to go back, none at all. Now he works here, on the Iranian side of the border, at a truck stop with an old man as his boss.

Abolfazl Jalili began by making TV-films and documentaries, but most of his films are in that borderline zone between documentary and fiction. Delbaran most definitely. The boy playing Kaim was a refugee himself, Kaim Alizadeh, whom Jalili happen to meet up there, and everything in the film (perhaps with the exception of a wedding ceremony taking place in a goat's pit) is a direct representation of the daily lives of the people at and around this truck stop. Are the few stray things about the film's Kaim's past that he mentions actual experiences of the real person Kaim Alizadeh, or are they not? That might be what decides whether this is a documentary or a work of fiction, but if we do not know it does not matter. The line between documentary and fiction, despite what some might think, is not a firm, unshakeable thing but inevitably flexible and fluid. Delbaran shows the arbitrariness of such a line. (Something it has in common with many other Iranian films that have become well-known abroad.)

Something else that is inevitable is that Delbaran has been likened to neorealism, even though it is plainly not at all like it. The neorealist films are fine as they are, but with their clearly defined characters, story arcs, frequent use of professional actors and tendency to be melodramatic, they are very different from Delbaran, which has neither of those things. What it has however is a wonderful sense of deadpan humour. There is for example an episode where a few men are, it seems like, hunting birds. One of them is running to catch the birds, but the way the sequence is edited it looks like he is just running back and forth in front of the hunters, trying to avoid getting shot. Sound is also used for comic effects at times. One scene shows the feet of the boy and an old, one-legged woman, walking across the courtyard in slow-motion while a French pop song is heard.

But this is no comedy, life is precarious and sometimes refugees are shot and killed. War and death is around the characters. Another way sound is used is exemplified by a series of three static shots of what looks like RPG's (rocket-propelled-grenades) mounted to the ground as if some kind of decoration, with each image accompanied with the sound of a non-diegetic explosion.

While sound is used to vivid effect there is very little dialogue. The camera is often at some distance from whatever is happening (alternated with still close-ups of objects). Perhaps the most common shot is of the camera panning either left or right, for a long time, following a car, a motorcycle or somebody running, usually the boy. The repetition of such scenes help give the film of feeling of hopelessness and perhaps a kind of surrealism. People are running but they do not seem to be getting anywhere, they are trapped in the here and now of their despair.

So the film is about a sleepy outpost in rural Iran, while also a drama about refugees, and as such always pertinent. Most refugees are after all to be found not in Sweden or Germany but in the countries closest to whatever people are fleeing from.

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The myths about neorealism are strong and persistent, and often bear little resemblance to actual films such as Open City (Roberto Rossellini 1945), Bicycle Thieves (Vittorio De Sica 1948), Bitter Rice (Giuseppe De Santis 1949) or Umberto D. (Vittorio De Sica 1952). For example, while some parts might be played by amateurs, such as the main male characters in Bicycle Thieves and Umberto D., other parts are played by professionals, even stars, including in Umberto D. and Open City.

Over the years I have seen four films by Abolfazl Jalili at various film festivals. The first was Don (1998), Delbaran was the second (the first time I saw it was 2002) and then The First Letter (2003) and Darvag (2012). I have liked them all, although no one as much as Delbaran.

The images of Abbas Kiarostami

The blog will take a short break, for holidays and such, and will be back in mid-July. Until then, enjoy these images from some films of Abbas Kiarostami, one of contemporary cinema's greatest visual poets.

The Wind Will Carry Us (1999)

Through the Olive Trees (1994)

Like Someone in Love (2012)

Close-Up (1990) 

This scene is several minutes long, with the camera just looking at an empty can rolling down the road. That is a special kind of beauty.

Mohsen Makhmalbaf and family

The Makhmalbaf family definitely has cinema in their DNA. Father Mohsen has been a filmmaker since the 1980s, after he sat in prison for sometime for having tried to kill a policeman. His wife Marziyeh Meshkini has made three films, one of which is the extraordinaryThe Day I Became a Woman (Roozi ke zan shodam 2000), and their daughters Samira and Hani has also made several films, Samira's being the most well known, including her first The Apple(Sib 1998) and Blackboards (Takhté siah 2000).

Last week I had the opportunity to talk with Makhmalbaf and his wife (see my previous posting), who were visiting St Andrews. He was, and still is, active in his support for the Green Movement in Iran. Although very much disappointed about what was going on in his home country, and the reactions from the West, whose only concern is the nuclear issue, he still had hope for the future. But what was needed he felt was a cultural shift, a move away from the religious mindset of the present. In a sense you might say that what he wanted was for the country to do what he himself has done.

When I said that it seemed almost impossible that there could be so much filmmaking talent in one family, he said that it wasn't a question of talent. Talent is not important, what is important is passion and dedication, that you're serious about what you do. I'm not sure I agree with that, in the sense that if you don't know how to make a film, it doesn't really matter how dedicated you are, the audience will probably not understand, if they even bother to try.

Makhmalbaf has a poetic, perhaps naïve, belief in the importance of the purity of the film. He contrasted the "vulgar" Bollywood musicals with the early films of Satyajit Ray, films which, he said, captured the soul of India. I don't even know what that is, but arguably the Bollywood films of today will tell you more about India than Ray's films, even if I, like Makhmalbaf, much prefer Ray's work. (Ray is after all one of the greatest artists in cinema history.)

Now the Makhmalbafs live in Paris, and he travels around the world to fight for Iran's future. He was name dropping the likes of Bernard Kouchner and Barack Obama, and I think that he both enjoys it and finds it exasperating to have become a politician. Even though he was always political.

Among Makhmalbaf's most interesting films are Salaam Cinema (1995), A Moment of Innocence (Nun va goldoon 1996) and Kandahar (Safar e Gandehar 2001), so check them out if you haven't already done so.

Film, politics and cinema diplomacy

As a film scholar and film enthusiast I'm sometimes torn. Torn between my love of cinema and my feeling that cinema isn't really that important and that I should devote my time to saving the world or something. This is of course very silly, but what's funny is that it is usually people who are not in cinema that tells me so. People who are studying international relations or medicine or other worthwhile things.

But I needn't feel guilty for to begin with, there's room both for the studying of film and doing "good deeds", whatever that might be. But what people tell me is that film is such an important and ubiquitous art form, and there's need for people such as myself to study it, to explore and explain it, and keep track of it. Since most people have a deep relationship with films, it's only good and proper that somebody look after their interests.

The other thing, and something which my talk with Mohsen Makhmalbaf last week underscored, is that film in itself can be used for political purposes, that cinema is a tool, which can be used for good and for bad. Propaganda film is the most obvious example, but all kinds of cinema has long been used for other things besides entertainment. Makhmalbaf is of course a very political filmmaker, and now, with the situation in Iran being what it is, he's living in exile in Paris, together with his immensely talented (and charming) wife. (More on them in my next blog post.)

I have also used films for political purposes. When Russia invaded Georgia in 2008 I was furious, and I wanted to do something about it. But what? Well, the one thing I could do, bring a film festival to Tbilisi, to show my support. So I did that, with the help of the Swedish Embassy.

So there you go, I need to stop whining and perhaps even be proud. But I could also do more to make the two things, cinema and politics, come together. Partly by doing what I would call "cinema diplomacy", like what I did in Tbilisi, and partly by using the one to explain the other. Discussing cinema by using politics, and explaining politics with the use of cinema. The fight starts here.

(Speaking of cinema diplomacy, here's an article from Los Angeles Times, in March last year, about Hollywood and Iran. This was of course before the political situation exploded after the election last summer.)

Jafar Panahi released

I've written before here about the Iranian director Jafar Panahi, and the fact that he was arrested by the Iranian authorities. Now he seems to have been released, after three months in prison. Here's a link to an article about it in the New York Times.

I've actually met Panahi once, a couple of years ago when he was visiting Sweden. He expressed his surprise that anybody in such an exotic country would be interested in Iranian films, and his films. But they're very good, so why shouldn't we like them? From The White Balloon (Badkonake sefid 1995) to Offside (2006), with perhaps The Circle (Dayereh 2000) being the most famous here.

It's good he has been released, but he should never have been arrested in the first place, and so many others are still looked up.

More from Iran

This article in the latest issue of The Believer starts of very promising, but then it gets tangled up in some annoying musings on Abbas Kiarostami. Annoying because contrary to what is said, Kiarostami isn't only a filmmaker devoted to "mythical and contemplative places". Sometimes he's realistic and political, and besides, how can one not be a political filmmaker. The argument also goes that Kiarostami is "just an art-director" (how can that be a bad thing?). But Kiarostami has no moral obligations to be either the one thing or the other, his only obligations are to his own conscience.

The fact that some critics in the West exploit and "exotice" him should not be used as an argument against Kiarostami but only against those critics.

But the article is still a worthwhile read, especially the bit about Ali, the Henri Langlois of Iran.

News from Iran

The director Jafar Panahi has been arrested, together with his whole family apparently. Here are some links:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/8545505.stm

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/mar/02/iran-arrests-film-maker-jafar-panahi-green-movement

Iranian films

To complement the previous post on Iranian cinema, here's a list of some very good Iranian films of the 90s and 00s. Required viewing.

10 (Abbas Kiarostami 2002)

Apple, The / Sib (Samira Makhmalbaf 1998)

Circle, The / Dayereh (Jafar Panahi 2001)

Close-Up / Nema-ye Nazdik (Abbas Kiarostami 1990)

Day I Became a Woman, The / Roozi ke zan shodam (Marzieh Makhmalbaf 2000)

Delbaran (Abolfazl Jalili 2001)

First Letter, The / Abjad (Abolfazl Jalili 2003)

Moment of Innocence, A / Nun va Goldoon (Mohsen Makhmalbaf 1996)

Kandahar / Safar e Ghandehar (Mohsen Makhmalbaf 2001)

Paper Airplanes / Mooshak e Kaghazi (Farhad Mehranfad 1997)

Secret Ballot, The /Raye makhfi (Babak Payami 2001)

Song of the Sparrow, The / Avaze gonjeshk-ha (Majid Majidi 2008)

White Balloon, The / Badkonake sefid (Jafar Panahi 1995)

Wind Will Carry Us, The / Bad ma ra khahad bord (Abbas Kiarostami 1999)

The struggle in Iran

In the 1990s and early 2000s, Iranian cinema was perhaps the most interesting and inspiring of all world cinemas. But these last years I haven't seen as many films from Iran as before. That could be because of poor or middlebrow distributors are importing fewer films to where I am, or it could be that the climate for filmmakers have worsen since Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was elected president in 2005. I've been wondering about that, but haven't done enough research into the matter.

Now though, after last year's (probably) fraudulent election and the brutality shown by the regime afterwards, the political climate for everybody, including filmmakers, have deteriorated very much. An article in today's New York Times has the latest update.

It's a sad and upsetting story, the story of Iran. The country has so many riches, it should be one of the great nations today, not least culturally, but instead they (the leaders) waste it all on bad politics and bad economics. Things were looking up when Mohammad Khatami was elected president in 1997 (and again in 2001), but he might not have been strong enough to make much of a difference.

The great Persian poet and scholar Omar Khayyam once wrote something like:

The end of the story is cruel and sad
From dust we came, and gone with winds cool

Let's hope there isn't a cruel and sad end to the story. And remember, as Khayyam also wrote:

Life is a temporal gift that we borrow
Whether dead for ages, or leave tomorrow