Makhmalbaf File
Makhmalbaf's
Moment
Interview by David Walsh
Interviewed by M. Haghighat
The Films of Mohsen Makhmalbaf
Mohsen
Makhmalbaf: Retrospective
Poetry that cuts
through Hollywood lies
Carpet Ride
Adina Hoffman, critic of The Jerusalem Post
| Makhmalbaf calls Salaam Cinema a tribute to the centenary of the movies, though in fact it takes more startling shape as a sophisticated gloss on the nature of performance, a barbed attack on the abuses that come with absolute power, and a wryly metaphysical meditation on the relationship between the one and the many. Somewhere between a happening and an auto-da-fé, this disturbing and funny film manages to comment more devastatingly than almost any I know on the double-edged ability of this particular art form to redeem and corrupt. Throughout, Makhmalbaf parodies himself in the role of the Almighty Director, at one point even taunting a few aspiring young actresses by demanding to know, "Would you rather be an artist or a humane person?" |  |
For reasons probably more economic than political, Salaam Cinema has never been
distributed in the United States, but I describe it at such length here because it serves
as a telling introduction to Makhmalbaf's steep and fascinating filmic universe. More
important still, a chance meeting that occurred during the filming of Salaam Cinema
gave way to the director's next movie, a small masterpiece from 1996 called A Moment of
Innocence, which is currently enjoying short runs in various American cities, and
which manages to push the dark lessons of Salaam Cinema into territory much more
hopeful and expansive. Shot on less than a shoestring in various snowy Tehran
neighborhoods, in the modest, naturally lit manner of most of Makhmalbaf's films, which he
also writes and edits himself, A Moment of Innocence is at first glance
"just" another movie about the movies. But the longer one watches, the better
one grasps that, for Makhmalbaf, the movies contain all of life.
This is, of course, a far cry from the ruling Ameri-can idea of a movie as the Great
Escape, a cautiously scripted and photographed affair, designed to make gobs of money and
flatter its audience's assumptions. A Makhmalbaf picture is something far more elusive and
challenging, a kind of shifting arrangement of two-way mirrors, in which the audience
beholds itself from numerous, often startling, angles, while also seeing beyond that
reflection to the director's own world--a place where rigid Western distinctions between
public and private, belief and doubt, fact and fiction, tradition and innovation simply no
longer apply.
In a more basic way, A Moment of Innocence also charts the gradual process of
ideological moderation that over the past few decades has gripped Makhmalbaf and, at the
same time, much of Iran.
Born
in 1957 or 1952, depending on which sources one consults, Makhmalbaf grew up
poor in Tehran. As a young man, he was a devout Muslim, and according to the
faintly fanciful legends that have since sprung up around him, he once refused
to speak to his grandmother for several days after she admitted she had gone to
the movies. He, it is said, did not see a film until he was in his 20s. By then,
though, Makhmalbaf had already experienced enough high historical drama to fill
a David Lean epic or two: A major turning point came at age 17 when, as a
radical opponent of Shah Mohammed Reza Pahlavi's regime, he stabbed a policeman
and tried to steal his gun. Shot in the course of the struggle, Makhmalbaf was
sent to prison, where he was tortured and sentenced to death by firing squad.
But then came the revolution and his release, which was followed by a period of
feverish artistic activity. As one of the founders of the Islamic Propagation
Organization, Makhmalbaf wrote essays, short stories, plays, criticism, and even
a religious diatribe against women appearing onstage. At this point, he also
began to write and direct movies, the earliest examples of which were screened,
of all places, in mosques.
 |
Since then, he has gone on to make some 17 movies, evolving in the process from die-hard
supporter of the clerics to fairly outspoken critic of their pervasive control. Several of
Makhmalbaf's films, including A Moment of Innocence, have been banned in his own
country, while in the West, in Europe especially, he has so far mostly been upstaged by
his justly Celebrities countryman, the leading figure of this Iranian new wave, Abbas
Kiarostami. Ironically enough, Makhmalbaf is best known abroad not as a director, but for
the role he played in a Kiarostami film, the brilliant and often heartbreaking Close-Up,
which explores the actual case of an unemployed film buff who passed himself off to a
middle-class Tehran family as Makhmalbaf. So intense was his identification with the
director's work, the imposter seemed honestly to have felt he was no longer playing a
part. Perhaps it was a similar sense of connection and despair that drew one odd-looking loner to try his luck at the open-call audition that became Salaam Cinema. With a skull slightly too big for his body, a protruding brow, sunken eyes, and the gentle-giant's bearing of a swarthy Boris Karloff, this shy yet hulking figure was the policeman Makhmalbaf stabbed as a young radical. Now out of work and clearly still traumatized by the violent incident, he arrived at the audition hoping to win a part in Makhmalbaf's film. |
From
this lopsided reunion came A Moment of Innocence, the director's comic,
sad, and remarkably tender attempt to recreate the events surrounding the
stabbing and, by doing so, to come to terms with their legacy. Makhmalbaf appears once again as himself and
casts the former policeman as--the former policeman. The two of them spend the movie
preparing to make a movie about this central incident in both of their lives.
Before they can begin, they must cast fresh-faced actors to play their younger selves--and
immediately the poignancy and weird humor of the situation become clear, as the
literal-minded cop insists that he is the only actor suited to play himself as a
young man. When this doesn't work, he demands they give the role to the most handsome
teenager who has come to try out. The policeman eventually agrees to a less glamorous
stand-in, and for the role of young Makhmalbaf, a slender, sensitive-looking boy with the
slightest peach-fuzz mustache is selected, not for physical but for psychological reasons:
He says in his audition that he wants to "save mankind." Now each couple sets
out on its own to prepare for the film. Ostensibly the older men will coach the younger
through their roles, telling them where to stand and what to say. In some more essential
sense, though, as Makhmalbaf and the policeman retrace their fateful footsteps, they are
also rethinking the choices they made on that day.
For all its farcical overtones, the film has the haunting outline of an obsessive memory,
or recurring dream, an event locked in time, to which one returns and returns in
self-flagellating hopes that compulsive recollection might somehow change its inevitable
outcome. As in the Persian and Arabic narrative poetry that the director has cited as the
primary influence on his own movie making, the real here gives rise to fantasy and fantasy
then hovers, shimmering, above the real; in the process, both are profoundly altered.
Delicately, often elliptically, Makhmalbaf manages to ask what it means to be an actor, to
play a part, not just in the movies, but in society. As a young man, Makhmalbaf played a
radical; now he plays a film director, just as the policeman played expertly the role of
policeman--until, that is, the few seconds when he flubbed the part. Because he was
distracted by a girl who passed by every day and with whom he'd fallen in love, his gun
was grabbed. (As we learn in the course of the film, this was no accident: The girl was
Makhmalbaf's cousin, girlfriend, and accomplice.) In an instant, the cop's life was, by
his own definition, ruined. Some of the spookiest scenes in the movie are those where he
demonstrates for his young stand-in how to guard a general's house, how to salute, how to
goose-step. Watching him perform these shah-era military tasks with a perfectly straight
face and back, it's plain that he thinks this was the role of his lifetime. Now that the
show's over, the man feels he has nothing to live for.
But Moment is not merely some Stanislavskian riff on the challenge of playing a
small part in history. It's the director's earnest attempt to extend the reaches of his
own sympathetic imagination--to try to understand a man he once risked his life to stab.
Empathy, the desire for meaning, and a subtle, probing sense of self are woven together
here in Makhmalbaf's complex yet somehow direct answer to his own question: Would you
rather be an artist or a humane person?
Why did you begin to make cinema and why do you continue to make it today?
At 17, I was active in a militia
group. I was arrested and shot, because I believed in fighting for democracy and social
justice. After the revolution I decided to enter into cultural activities because I felt
that to achieve democracy, one must prepare the people culturally. Initially I wrote
articles and stories. I remember one day I went to the movie theater and watched a very
bad Iranian film. Some people suggested that I criticize this film, and I said, well, it's
better if one makes a good film and shows what a good film is. So, in fact, one bad film
caused me to become a filmmaker.
But in answer to your question as to why I now continue to make films: it's because
filmmaking is a method of dialogue between myself and people everywhere. If I didn't make
films, probably I would become lonelier. There is a quote from one filmmaker that I really
like: "I love people and I make films so that they will love me too."
Now you're not simply speaking to Iranian people, but people all over the world. Does that make a difference?
No, as a matter of fact, I make films to speak with the people of the world.
In what way do you think cinema or art can have an influence on life and society?
I think the influence of art is on individuals and the resulting effect is on society. It influences by changing the viewer's outlook. And when someone's outlook towards life changes, his behavior changes. I think that humanity can still be advanced through cinema. It's still possible through cinema to tell people not to be selfish and to share life with others.
|
That view is not the dominant view in North American or European cinema. Of course. As far as I'm concerned
we have two kinds of cinema. Cinema as business and cinema as culture. Unfortunately,
Hollywood cinema has basically taken over 90 percent of cinema worldwide. I think that the
United States has been more able to conquer and influence the world through films than
with weapons. Why is it that at this point Iranian cinema seems to reflect life more accurately and more richly than other cinemas? |
 |
Two points should always be kept in
mind in any discussion about Iranian cinema. The first point is that two years before the
revolution the Iranian cinema died because Hollywood came and killed it. When the
revolution took place Hollywood cinema was stopped and therefore Iranian cinema had no
competition. So we returned to making 70 films a year. But this is like bringing up a
flower in a greenhouse. The commercial hurricane represented by Hollywood cinema would
pull any independent plant out by the roots. Therefore, we have to have a greenhouse
situation so that this wind and storm doesn't kill the flowers.
For example, Egyptian cinema should make 150 films a year, but since the takeover by
Hollywood films it doesn't make any more than ten or fifteen. Or take Brazil, which has
150 million people, but makes five films a year. In the whole world there are two to three
thousand films made a year. One thousand of those are made in India, without value; seven
hundred in Hollywood. The rest of the world makes somewhere between 400 and 800 films a
year. There are also Hollywood films, but made in other countries. Independent filmmakers
without a support structure can no longer stand on their own feet.
When Hollywood cinema was stopped, people in Iran had no choice but to watch non-Hollywood
films. Therefore, eventually their tastes changed. People now show greater enthusiasm for
artistic films. For example, take SALAM CINEMA. If we had shown this film twenty years ago
in Iran, 2,000 people would have seen it and they would have torn up the theater seats.
Now one million people in Iran have seen this film. Of the three most successful films of
last year, one of them was commercial, the other two were artistic.
Of course Iranian cinema has a few characteristics. One is that it has more focus on
reality. Because, more than anything else, it's life that changes, that moves. If one only
refers to one's own mentality, especially at the height of intellectualism, one inevitably
arrives at pessimism or darkness. Why are three or four decades of the world's artistic
films so dark? The Iranian cinema can be compared with Italian neo-realism, but without
the darkness that existed in that kind of cinema.
Maybe it's because the more life confronts danger, the more it reveals its true character.
If someone is sitting in Europe and everything is easy for him, he doesn't focus that much
on life. As compared to someone who is living somewhere where his life is in danger as a
result of war, or an earthquake, or a flood, or a civil war. That person cherishes life
just like when one opens a pomegranate and tries to savor every single seed in it.
| Iranian cinema is a very realistic cinema that praises life and is hopeful. I learned this from the beggars in India. Five years ago I went to Bombay, and in a taxi I passed a wide area where over a million people were living. It was nearly evening and all of them were dancing. They didn't have any proper clothes on, they didn't have any proper shelter. Dog and cat and man lived all together, day and night. I thought that it was because of a religious occasion that everyone was dancing. The next night I noticed the same thing, and a third night. I said to them, at the brink of death, what are you singing and dancing for? They couldn't explain directly or philosophically. One could derive from their answers that they meant life is not having a house, life does not mean having too much food or too many fine clothes. Life is believing in life itself. Sometimes we see people in Europe who are living in utmost luxury, but have forgotten the core essence of life. They consider the tools for life more important than life itself. If it takes one thousand years for the one billion people in India to reach socialism, what's going to happen to these people meanwhile? Although I consider Indian cinema to be relatively bad, one thing about it shouldn't be underestimated, and that is it's cherishing of life and dancing for life. At the end of all Indian films, there is a happy ending, whereas before that there has been a major series of disasters. The beggars go to the cinema for an hour and a half and dream of happiness. If the tragic business on the screen doesn't reach a happy ending than even that is taken away from them. In life they are desperate, and if they go to the cinema and there they are told that life is desperate as well, then nothing is left for them. First they say, give me money for bread, and then when you give them that, they say give me money for a ticket to the movie theater. Because they need bread and the dream of happiness. |  |
At the same time we hope it doesn't take a thousand years for people's lives to change. If you had a group of American filmmakers or film students here now, what problems would you raise with them?
My first recommendation would be to forget about making films with big budgets. No one gives big money to a filmmaker to endorse culture. They give big money to get big money in return. Therefore it's better for us to look for a small amount of money that can expand culture. The second is to try and stay away from having 40-man crews and go with five or six people to make a film. I made GABBEH with a crew of eight, including the driver and the cook. So when the investor tries to cheat you, to rip you off your own salary, let him, because you're ripping him off in actual fact, because you've managed to make your film. If I hadn't used this method I wouldn't have made fourteen feature films in fourteen years. Three or four years ago I met Werner Herzog in Iran. He's a very dear person to me. He was looking for money to make his new film. With my method I made three films, but he's still looking for money to make his latest film.
In the notes to your film, you speak about cinema reflecting reality, and of course I agree. But in the relationship between life and cinema, what is the role of artistic intuition or poetic imagination?
You're right. If we look at reality with a simplistic view, this is not an artistic piece of work. Because art begins with individuals. Even though it may have socialistic goals. It's impossible for someone to say that what I'm saying is the absolute truth. It's like when I talk about this glass. In any event this is a glass from my view, and from your view it's something else. Consequently when we speak of realism, at the same time, we're still talking about surrealism. There is no truth that everyone agrees upon as realism. Instead of talking about reality we should be talking about believing in realness. In fact, when I'm speaking of realism it is actually a path exactly halfway between external reality and my mental state. For example, SALAM CINEMA documents real events, which took place. I sat behind the desk and acted so that I could intertwine my own ideas with that reality. In GABBEH, I wrote a fictional story, which I tried to make look like a documentary. My filmmaking is somewhere between documentary and narrative fiction, between truth and opinion, between politics and poetry. And all my problems come from this.
And your strength as well. What general criticisms would you make of the Iranian cinema?
The most important issue is the
unbearable censorship. Second, is the absurdity of the critics. Not all the critics, but
most of them. Third, that Iranian cinema has three movements. There are 300 film groups
and three filmmaking groups. The first group takes money from the government and makes
propaganda films. They've just about convinced the government that no one else should make
any films. The second group is made up of commercial filmmakers, who are trying to act
like Hollywood and get money from private investors. They attack the changed taste that
the people have developed. People barely go see the first group's films. If the artistic
group basically disappears, then the second group will replace it.
The artistic group, despite all the problems, has brought a lot of honor to the Iranian
people. Ten years ago no one was showing Iranian cinema. Now there is no festival that
would not show an Iranian film. In ten years we have done a lot of work. Some 2,500
festivals have shown one or more of our films. We have received more than 250
international awards. Out of that ten to fifteen, maybe two or three of us are more famous
than the others, but there have been ten to fifteen people who have really worked hard.
Now all these people have both producer problems, censorship problems, and if the
situation continues, in some years' time you may not see any Iranian films.
Ultimately two or three of the more famous ones will leave Iran and they will make films
in other countries. But this is no longer Iranian cinema. Then it becomes: this is my
film; this is Kiarostami's film. That is very bad.
Whereas now Iranian cinema shows the Iranian people to the world. The US has tried very
hard to make an entire people out to be terrorists. The Iranian cinema tries to say that
the Iranian people are very warm and poetic people. I'll give you an example. I was
invited to the Telluride festival. They had to put a French film's name on my film to get
it into the US. And then the Americans wouldn't give me a visa, because I'm Iranian. On
the other hand, Iran won't let me send my film out, because I'm accused of being
influenced by the West, and a fan of the West. This is our problem at the moment. If we
make a film which offers some criticism of the current situation, the people inside Iran
say, you've humiliated us. The government says, don't show the Iranians like this. Even
the opposition says that. If you make a film and praise Iran those people would say,
there's some trick in this. And the opposition would say, he's under the government's
influence. This is our culture. They all want you to think like them, be one of them.
Being an Iranian and independent is very difficult. To be a filmmaker and be independent
is very difficult. To be alive and living is very difficult. But life goes on.
What problems would you like to make films about in the future?
I have many scripts, it depends on which one I can make. One thing I might make is the film in India, about the beggars. I've been working five years on the script, but I haven't gotten approval from the government. Maybe I will change the script and make it in a different way. Or maybe I will make a film in Turkey or Georgia. I hope they will allow me to make films in Iran. There's a very slim possibility that I will make films in Canada. Maybe I will remake NANOOK OF THE NOR.
Interviewed by M. Haghighat
How did you get the idea for your latest film, THE SILENCE?
It goes back to my childhood. My grandmother who was very religious said to me all the time: "If you listen to music, you'll go to hell". She made me stick my fingers in my ears when we were out in the street so I wouldn't hear the music. It was for my own good! The first Western music I heard was Beethoven's 5th. I was deeply affected by the splendor and strength of this piece. Since then, those four notes have been going around in my head… As for the magnetic power of music, a blacksmith who worked for us told me that one day while on the bus, he had tried to follow one of the passengers as he felt drawn by the music he was listening to, and he had gotten lost. That's how I got the idea for the film.
|
After TIME OF LOVE, THE SILENCE is the second film you have shot abroad. Why is that? In 1990, I was refused permission to shoot TIME OF LOVE in Iran. So I went to Turkey. I also shot part of the film THE CYCLIST in Pakistan. Two years ago, censorship became more and more severe, and I wanted to leave Iran to make films abroad. I wanted to go to an Orient country - India, for example. In the end, I chose Tajikistan. |
 |
Why Tajikistan?
It's Persian-speaking country which is high in color and poetry. To me, this country feels like a lost half of Iran. For several decades, the people of Tajikistan were forced to speak Russian, but despite it all, they continue to speak Persian in secret to preserve their cultural identity. They had no textbooks and their only written references were the works of the poets. That's why their everyday language these days is close to poetry. They have rediscovered their roots but what's surprising is that they sometimes recite prayers drinking wine or spout poems! If I had shot SILENCE in Iran, I would of course, have had to make concessions and change certain things. Working abroad was a valuable experience, which will be useful to me, should I ever be unable to make films in Iran. I think that a filmmaker should not limit himself to a single canvas. If he does, it spells death for the artist
In several of your films, there are close links with painting and poetry. Were you inspired by Omar Khayam's poems in making THE SILENCE?
In THE SILENCE, the scene by the river where the girl puts petals on her nails to imitate nail varnish and cherries on her ears as earrings is inspired by a poem by Fourogh, but the general tone of the film is more inspired by Khayam, who says "You must live in the moment…" Today, I am moving away from a political cinema toward a more poetic cinema. I came to realize that politics shackles us. When you're a prisoner of an ideology or a certain political dogma, you tend to resemble others. Art, on the other hand, frees us. The artistic process strives for originality. By searching for oneself, one sets oneself on the path to freedom. Cinema is an art. The more films one makes, the more one falls in love with it. That's why I prefer poetry to politics.
Iranian poetry is very metaphorical. Is your film very metaphorical, too?
In most of Khayam's poems, the
central theme is "Make the most of the moment for we do not have long to live".
We have to rid ourselves of our complexes about the past and not to think of our concerns
for the future. It's the same thing in THE SILENCE. The protagonist is faced with eviction
and about to be fired from his job. Despite all this, the little boy lives in the
"moment". He sacrifices the past and the future in favor of the present.
Although he is blind, he is fascinated by the beauty of the world that he perceives thanks
to his extremely well developed sense of hearing. Because of this, he is concerned by the
creative process, just like an artist is. THE SILENCE is a kind of contemporary
representation of the spirit of Khayam.
This film, for me, marks the passage from realism to surrealism. It is a conflict between
objectivity and subjectivity. The story is simple - it's the story of a boy who, despite
the love he receives from those around him, is deprived of the moments of happiness that
he would like to experience. Around him, he creates a world in which he can be happy. He
loves the beauty of the sound of dry bread as he crunches it. He is satisfied with the
bare minimum.
Indeed, you have arrived at a kind of minimalism…
Perhaps, but the minimalism is in this very conflict. It's not a conflict between individuals, but between man and his situation. The story is just a pretext. Stories belong to novels and to the cinema. In real life, we experience a succession of moments, but not a story. We create stories from life. We can concentrate a year of someone's life into a two-hour film by keeping only the moments of interest to us. In THE SILENCE, the background is often neutral - it's a universal story. We have a character, a situation and certain conflicts. That is where the creative part comes in. Khorshid's character is similar to mine. When I was a child, I was forbidden from doing almost everything. Now, when someone says: "Don't listen to such and such person", this frustration provokes my creativity.
 |
In most of your films, the characters have a physical handicap, e.g. THE PEDDLER, TIME OF LOVE, SALAM CINEMA and above all, in THE SILENCE. How do you explain that? I don't know, I can't! You often work with non-professional actors. What is the reason for this choice and how does it change the way you work? |
Out of fifteen films I have directed, only twice did I work with professional actors. The first time was for ONCE UPON A TIME, CINEMA and the second time was THE ACTOR. As THE ACTOR dealt with the life of an Iranian film star, I asked this actor to play himself. There are two schools of thought on actors. One claims that the advantage with professionals is that you work faster and you are more at ease with them. The second has it that when you work with stars, the director wastes 50% of his energy trying to erase previous roles and bring out the new character. When you choose to work with a non-professional actor that the public is unfamiliar with, you avoid this conflict.
You edit your films yourself. Do you think it is better for filmmakers to do this?
The director turns a screenplay into images. The editor then modifies this vision. For my first three films, I worked with an editor. I now think that the screenplay, the directing and the editing are the three key parts of a film. I couldn't imagine anyone other than me writing or editing my films. The more I believe in auteur cinema, the less I would consider letting an editor edit my film.
How do you view Iranian cinema under the presidency of Khatami?
It's too soon to say. Every week, every month, the situation changes. For once, no film was censored for the Fajr Festival (Tehran, February, 1998). Despite that, a few weeks later, the scene of the girl dancing in the instrument maker's workshop in THE SILENCE was censored. To protest against this, I have decided not to screen the film in Iran until this shot is restored to the film. As for the social situation, there is some improvement. In the cinema, we are being allocated bigger production budgets. There is another kind of censorship - a Western censorship - imposed by capital and market forces. No one in particular is responsible. They are victims of tensions found in society. For example, in the newspapers, a photo is published which causes a scandal. The next day, a law bans this kind of photo.
Mohsen Makhmalbaf and Abbas Kiarostami are the two major directors to emerge from the post-revolutionary Iranian cinema, and such is the measure of their talents that it is fair to say that both currently stand "at the frontline of world cinema" (Vancouver International Film Festival). While Kiarostami, subject of a Pacific Cinòmath¦que retrospective in September 1995, is known for his lyrical, poetic humanism -- albeit mixed with a very complex, very playful formalism - - Makhmalbaf's startling work has often been cited for being much the opposite: caustic, confrontational, hysterical, misanthropic, anti- humanist.
Makhmalbaf was born into poverty in Tehran in 1957. "[His] bio -- manifestly that of a maverick -- is the stuff of instant legend: A teenage Islamic militant imprisoned by the Shah's secret police, he had an antipathy to cinema (On one occasion I stopped talking to my mother for some time because she had gone to the movies.Å) In postrevolutionary Iran he was a hardliner dedicated to eradicating all trace of prerevolutionary cinema, but once he began to make films himself he underwent a conversion, and in time several of his own films would be banned. Most famously, he became the object of the movie devotee's obsession in Kiarostami's Closeup" (Gavin Smith, Film Comment).
Makhmalbaf has claimed that he had never seen a movie before making his first film in 1982. His early work was made for the Arts Bureau of the Organization for the Propagation of Islamic Thought, which he helped found, and reflected his fundamentalist world view. He burst onto the world scene in the late 1980s with The Peddler (1987), a disturbing, delirious film whose wealth of stylistic influences -- Hitchcock, Fellini, Bušuel, film noir -- suggested that Makhmalbaf had abandoned his militant antipathy to the movies and had undertaken a head-spinning crash course in cinema history. Like The Cyclist (1989), its follow-up, The Peddler drew attention for its intensely affecting mix of visual sophistication, nightmarish tone, deeply disquieting existential allegory, and acute social critique and concern for the downtrodden. Most unsettling to Western viewers, Makhmalbaf's social critique seemed to emanate not from a humanist perspective but from a harshly judgmental moral determinism rooted in fundamentalist Islam. (The Georgia Straight called The Peddler "a justification of an objectionable world view. . . [that] deserves unequivocal rejection"; the V.I.F.F. catalogue noted that the film was "disturbing. . . for its radically anti-humanistic theological underpinnings.")
As he has matured as an artist, Makhmalbaf's hard-line, militant moralism has shifted and softened. "In my first films, I was very extremist," Makhmalbaf has since admitted. "Then my way of thinking became more relative, but still remained concerned with social realities." With this change, however, has come increasing artistic difficulties at home. His Marriage of the Blessed (1989), an hallucinatory take on the Iran-Iraq war, ignited considerable debate for its apparent anti-war stance, and was condemned by many. Its follow-up, Time of Love (1990), was banned outright for its morally relative take on adultery, and was not released outside Iran for almost five years. Nights on Zayandeh Road (1991), dealing with those who died in the 1979 revolution, was also banned (and will not screen in this retrospective).
Makhmalbaf may have retreated to safer distances with Once Upon a Time, Cinema (1992) and The Actor (1993), both giddy love letters to the Iranian cinema he had once professed to despise and vowed to depose, but with the sly and subversive Salaam Cinema (1995) -- a tough-love billet-doux to his chosen profession which has Makhmalbaf bullying and badgering a series of would-be actors, and exposing the sadomasochistic side of filmmaking -- he proved that he had not lost his misanthropic edge, nor relinquished his status as one of cinema's most consistently surprising and inventive talents.
A Moment of Innocence (1996), a daring meta-cinematic re-creation of the incident that led to Makhmalbaf's imprisonment under the Shah, continued Salaam Cinema's innovative blurring of illusion and reality, and found the director reappraising his militant past with his new spirit of reconciliation. With the exultantly beautiful folk tale Gabbeh (1996), one was left to marvel at "a founder of the Centre for the Propagation of Islamic Thought and Arts making a film which threatens to explode the distinctions between god, nature, man and art" (V.I.F.F.).
"Like Heidegger, I believe that human nature is never revealed in normal human relationships [or] the behavior of the individual, [but shows] its true nature only in two situations: love and death" (Mohsen Makhmalbaf).
We are pleased to present Vancouver's first retrospective of Makhmalbaf's astonishing work.
Acknowledgements: Mohammad Atebbai and the Farabi Cinema Foundation (Tehran); Alissa Simon, The Film Centre, School of the Art Institute of Chicago (Chicago); Hussain Amarshi, Mongrel Media (Toronto); Karen Antelin, MK2 Diffusion (Paris).
A Moment of Innocence
(Noon-o-goldun)
Not for nothing is Iranian director Mohsen Makhmalbaf considered one of contemporary world
cinema's most consistently surprising and inventive talents. The ingenious A Moment of
Innocence -- Bread and Vase, in the original Farsi -- is a multi-layered
movie-about-a-movie that mixes reality and fiction and multiple perspectives into an
amazing Makhmalbafian mòlange that suggests a hybrid of the director's earlier Salaam
Cinema and Time of Love (both also featured in this retrospective). As a
teenager, Makhmalbaf had been a member of a militant anti-Shah group, and at 17 was
arrested and imprisoned for an incident in which a policeman was stabbed. Twenty years
later, during the cattle-call casting session that served as premise for Salaam Cinema,
that same policeman, now a civilian, would unexpectedly turn up, hoping to land an acting
job. Makhmalbaf refused him an audition, but later convinced the ex-cop to collaborate
with him on another film project: a reconstruction of the events which had first brought
them tragically together so many years before. The wickedly original A Moment of
Innocence is both the comic record of that collaboration and the intriguing result: a
puzzlebox blend of documentary and drama in which conflicting memories and long-hidden
secrets recast reality in ever new and revealing ways. "Delicate, funny and touching
by turns . . . continues to resonate long after higher-profile arty stodge has sunk
without trace" (Derek Elley, Variety). "Continuing in the sly, witty
tradition of Salaam Cinema, A Moment of Innocence surprises again and again, and nothing
-- not even the director's own memories - - can be taken for granted" (Dimitri
Eipides, Toronto I.F.F.). Iran/France 1996. Director: Mohsen Makhmalbaf. Cast: Mirhadi
Tayebi, Ali Bakhshi, Ammar Tafti, Mohsen Makhmalbaf. Colour, 35mm, in Farsi with English
subtitles. 78 mins.
The Peddler
(Dastforoush)
This disturbing and delirious anti-humanist feature was the film that first exposed Mohsen
Makhmalbaf to Western viewers -- and one could almost hear the jaws dropping, the eyes
popping, and the minds blowing. Variously described as a "conflation of Dostoevsky
and Psycho, Bušuel and Eraserhead" (Vancouver I.F.F.), and "the
strongest hell-on-earth movie since Taxi Driver" (Film Comment, 1989), The
Peddler is a trilogy of stories set amongst the urban poor of modern Tehran, and
centred on the cycle of birth, life and death. Each segment was shot in a different style,
by a different cinematographer. The first, based upon a story by Alberto Moravia, is a
wrenching, blackly comic tale of a destitute couple's attempts to have their newborn
daughter adopted. The surreal, sinisterly funny second story tells of an unstable young
man living alone with his wizened old mother. The inventive final episode, told from the
paranoid point-of- view of a scared-to-death peddler, draws on the conventions of American
gangster films. Makhmalbaf has described The Peddler as "a pictorial
expression of my views on man's existential situation. . . [an] exposition of my Islamic
stance in a world paralyzed by skepticism." "Truly astonishing. . . an
experience that will stay with you for a long time" (V.I.F.F.). "A blistering,
disturbing triptych of contemporary urban stories with a distinctly subversive,
allegorical edge and a raw, misanthropic energy that produced moments of hysterical
excess" (Film Comment, 1996). Iran 1987. Director: Mohsen Makhmalbaf. Cast:
Zohreh Sarmadi, Esmail Soltanian, Morteza Zarrabi, Behzad Behzadpour. Colour, 35mm, in
Farsi with English subtitles. 95 mins.
Close-Up
(Nama-ye nazdik)
Rarely has the line separating truth and fiction, documentary and drama, been explored (or
erased) with such startling originality and breathtaking innovation than in this tour de
force work -- a film which, although directed by Abbas Kiarostami, the Iranian cinema's
other reigning master, is a natural for inclusion in any Mohsen Makhmalbaf retrospective. Close-Up
-- something of an Iranian Six Degrees of Separation, and something of a departure
for Kiarostami, whose films typically deal with children and young adults -- is based on
actual events, and tells the tragicomic, sympathetic story of Ali Sabzian, an unemployed
young man who insinuates himself into the life of a wealthy family for a week by passing
himself off as the well-known Makhmalbaf. The impersonation was ultimately exposed by a
suspicious family member, and Sabzian was arrested, charged, and tried as a confidence
man. After reading of the case in a magazine, Kiarostami gained permission to film the
court proceedings, and then afterwards managed to convince the principals -- the real-life
Sabzian and his alleged victims-- to play themselves in a dramatic reenactment of the
events leading up to trial. The director then blended the veritò trial footage with the
dramatic reconstruction; the result is this remarkable, ironic, one-of-kind,
house-of-mirrors film. "[I]ngenious. . . Capturing our inherence state of naivete
with humor and pathos, Kiarostami has crafted an off-beat tragi-comedy in the most human
of proportions" (Northwest Film Center). "One of the best films of the last
decade: complex, funny, moving, provocative, profoundly humane. . . an intriguing
meditation on identity, voyeurism, the desperate need for self-esteem, and the difference
between film and reality. . . Miss it at your peril" (Cinematheque Ontario). Iran
1990. Director: Abbas Kiarostami. Cast: Ali Sabzian, Hassan Frazmand, Abolfazi Ahankhah.
Colour, 35mm, in Farsi with English subtitles. 100 mins.
Stardust Stricken -- Mohsen
Makhmalbaf: A Portrait
A profile of the energetic and idiosyncratic Mohsen Makhmalbaf, and a journey through his
unruly body of work. Directed by Houshang Golmakani, editor of Film Monthly, Iran's
oldest and most important film magazine, Stardust Stricken captures Makhmalbaf at
home and on the set of his films, including the recent Salaam Cinema and Gabbeh.
It also includes a conversation between Makhmalbaf and German director Werner Herzog
(himself the subject of a Pacific Cinòmath¦que retrospective in 1996). Stardust
Stricken is dedicated to Makhmalbaf's late wife and children, who died several years
ago in a house fire. Iran 1995. Director: Houshang Golmakani. With: Mohsen Makhmalbaf.
Colour and B&W, video, in Farsi with English subtitles. 70 mins.
Special Sneak Preview
Gabbeh
Pacific Cinòmath¦que and Mongrel Media are pleased to present a special sneak preview of
Mohsen Makhmalbaf's Gabbeh, prior to its commercial opening on Friday, February
7th. Perhaps the most gorgeous film you'll see on Vancouver screens this year, this movie
magic carpet ride is a seductive, lyrical, dazzlingly colourful folk romance set amongst
the nomadic tribes of southeastern Iran, and centring on the region's distinctive gabbeh
carpets, on which the narratives of tribal life are inscribed. The tale of a young woman's
rebellious love for a horseman, Gabbeh is pure "magical surrealism, an alchemy
that weaves the passion of a fairy-tale courtship into the very thread of film art. . .
The most otherworldly film at Cannes [and] also the most exquisite" (Mary Corliss, Film
Comment). "Gabbeh adds yet another jewel to the crown of recent Iranian cinema. .
. [It] unfolds imagery so startling and beautiful that it will keep viewers rapt even when
the narrative tantalizes with poetic opacity . . . full of a master's unerring confidence.
. . [it confirms Makhmalbaf's] reputation as filmmaker of remarkable daring and
sensitivity" (Godfrey Cheshire, Variety). Iran 1996. Director: Mohsen
Makhmalbaf. Cast: Abbas Sayahi, Shaghayegh Djodat, Hossein Moharami, Roghieh Moharami.
Colour, 35mm, in Farsi with English subtitles. 75 mins.
Cinema, Cinema
In 1994, Iranian expatriate Maani Petgar (an assistant to Amir Naderi on The Runner
and Water, Wind, Dust) travelled back to Tehran to make a documentary on Iranian
cinema for Australian television. The project took off on a new tangent when Petgar got
permission to record Mohsen Makhmalbaf at work on the set of his latest project. The
result was this behind-the-scenes documentary account of the making of Salaam Cinema,
from the casting-call-of-thousands which caused a riot, through the eight days of sham
(and often humiliating) "auditions" which became Makhmalbaf's finished film, to
the film's hit premiere at Cannes in 1995. Interviews with Salaam's aspiring actors
provide a portrait of contemporary Iranian youth culture rarely seen in the West, while
Makhmalbaf's often provocative pronouncements on life, love, gender roles and the state of
cinema give a good indication of why he is both the most controversial and most popular
filmmaker in 72 years of Iranian cinema. Iran/Australia 1996. Director: Maani Petgar.
With: Mohsen Makhmalbaf and the cast and crew of Salaam Cinema. Colour, video. 72 mins.
The Cyclist
(Bicycle-run)
A riveting follow-up to The Peddler, his breakthrough work, and continuing in the
same vein of existential allegory mixed with social critique, The Cyclist
"confirmed Makhmalbaf's unique ability to turn a grotesque subject into a rich and
fertile film which teases the brain while pulling on the heartstrings" (Deborah
Young, International Film Guide). "The cyclist of the title is Nassim, an
Afghan refugee in need of money to pay his wife's medical expenses. With work difficult to
come by, a sleazy promoter suggests he undertake a bicycle marathon. Touting him as the
Afghani superman, the huckster wagers that Nassim will circle a small area on the
outskirts of town, day and night, for a week. While he rides, a carnival of society's
dispossessed grows alongside the desperate cyclist. Gamblers, bookies, food vendors, and
leprous gawkers watch from the sidelines, cynically using Nassim's suffering for their own
purposes" (Alissa Simon, The Film Center, Chicago). "With intense and profoundly
affecting films like The Peddler and The Cyclist to his credit, director
Mohsen Makhmalbaf has to be considered a major talent in the world of cinema"
(Vancouver I.F.F.). Iran 1989. Director: Mohsen Makhmalbaf. Cast: Moharram Zeynalzadeh,
Esmail Soltanian, Mohamad Reza Maleki. Colour, 35mm, in Farsi with English subtitles. 75
mins.
Fleeing from Evil to God
(Este'azeh)
Based on a series of religious texts, this early Makhmalbaf feature relates the story of
five people who flee to an island in order to avoid Satanic temptations. Satan manages to
deceive four of them, however, while the fifth, a true believer, escapes evil temptation
by fleeing to God. Produced by the Arts Bureau of the Organization for the Propagation of
Islamic Thought, and shot in Cinemascope. Iran 1984. Director: Mohsen Makhmalbaf. Cast:
Mohammad Kassebi, Majid Majidi, Morteza Masaeli. Colour, 35mm, in Farsi with English
subtitles. 65 mins.
Salaam Cinema
Proof positive that revolutionary Iran is as movie-mad as anywhere else in world -- and
that filmmaker Mohsen Makhmalbaf is just a wee bit of a misanthrope -- the sly and
subversive Salaam Cinema was intended as the director's tribute to cinema's 100th
birthday, and was one of the great revelations of the international festival circuit in
1995. Trickster Makhmalbaf placed an ad in a Tehran newspaper, inviting people to addition
for his latest project. Thousands of people heeded his "cattle call" --
precipitating the rather alarming riot which opens Salaam Cinema. Makhmalbaf then
proceeded to film (in gorgeous 35mm) the "auditions" of dozens of these
hopefuls, many of whom are convinced that they bear an uncanny resemblance to Paul Newman
or Marilyn Monroe, or that their obvious abundance of talent will soon have them jetting
off to Cannes. These supposed "screen tests" became the stuff of Makhmalbaf's
frequently edgy film, with the director often badgering, hectoring and provoking his
aspiring actors, insisting that they cry on demand or leave, asking them to sing a song or
mime a melodramatic death, or simply getting them to talk about their lives. The results
are sometimes charming, sometimes cruel, but always absolutely fascinating -- a telling,
profound portrait of the power of movies and the little-dictator tyranny of moviemakers.
"The standout film of [1996's] San Francisco International Film Festival. . . equal
parts prank, interrogation, mindfuck, and cult/therapy workshop. . . radical and
disquieting" (Gavin Smith, Film Comment). "Witty and slyly resonant, the
simple premise turns into a reflexive treat. . . a fond, knowing tribute to the cinema's
alluring illusions" (Variety). Iran 1995. Director: Mohsen Makhmalbaf.
Cast: Azadeh Zangeneh, Maryam Keyhan, Feyzolah Ghashghai. Colour, 35mm, in Farsi with
English subtitles. 75 mins.
Once Upon a Time, Cinema
(Nasseredin Shah Actor-e Cinema)
Makhmalbaf's "love letter to the Iranian cinema" (Deborah Young, Variety)
is a free-for-all fantasia in the mode of Buster Keaton's Sherlock Junior or Woody Allen's
The Purple Rose of Cairo, in which "characters jump in and out of cameras,
projectors and screens, time goes backward and forward in melancholy leaps and actors
appear in multiple roles" (Young). At the dawn of the 20th century, a Chaplin- like
character known as the Cinematographer introduces the magic of movies to the Iranian
court. The pompous Shah, who has 84 wives and 200 children, is dead-set against the
pernicious influence of movies, but at the sight of his first film he falls madly in love
with its damsel-in-distress heroine, and resolves to give up his kingdom and become an
actor. Makhmalbaf has described the work as a "1001 Arabian Nights" of Iranian
film history, and he pays fond tribute to his nation's cinema by seamlessly and
inventively weaving myriad clips from classic Iranian movies into the screwball narrative.
The film won major awards at the Karlovy Vary, Istanbul and Taormina festivals. "Once
Upon a Time, Cinema almost defies description as the complexity and imagination
Makhmalbaf brings to it produce a dazzling visual roller coaster on which to sweep the
viewer along. . . [a memorable] cinematic fairy tale" (Sheila Whitaker, London Film
Festival). Iran 1992. Director: Mohsen Makhmalbaf. Cast: Ezzatollah Entezami, Mehdi
Hashemi, Akbar Abdi. Colour, 35mm, in Farsi with English subtitles. 100 mins.
preceded by
A Selection of Images in Ghajar Dynasty
(Gozideh Tasvir Dar Doran-e Ghajar)
A documentary short exploring visual works from the Ghajar Dynasty of a century ago,
including the first photography and cinematography shot in Iran. Iran 1993. Director:
Mohsen Makhmalbaf. Colour, 35mm, in Farsi with English subtitles. 18 mins.
Time of Love
(Nobat-e Asheghi)
Hailed as the first post-revolutionary Iranian film to deal with adultery -- and
suppressed at home as a consequence of its taboo subject matter -- Makhmalbaf's audacious A
Time of Love offers a startlingly original approach to the age-old story of the
romantic triangle. Its tale of a woman's extramarital affair is structured -- Ì la the
director's The Peddler -- as a tragic trilogy; here, all three episodes are
variations on the same story, each with a different ending, and, intriguingly, with the
two principal male characters exchanging the roles of husband and lover from episode to
episode. The film was shot in Turkey, with Turkish actors and Turkish dialogue, to avoid
censorship problems, and deals with sex in only the most oblique fashion, but was
nonetheless banned in Iran after screening at the Fajr fest in Tehran in early 1991, and
was not released to the West for almost five years. "By transposing the roles of the
victim and the transgressor between the same characters, Makhmalbaf underlines man's
problematic moral position, and the limits of his responsibility in the face of the
overwhelming force of circumstances. . . [He] thus questions the validity of the social
criteria by which men are judged and condemned" (Hassan S. Zahedi, Film
International). "An intriguing commentary on the social order in Iran, expanding
on the social criticism of his earlier The Peddler and Marriage of the Blessed.
But [Makhmalbaf's] message, however objectionable to his country's censors, is still
consistently conservative: only grief, not happiness, comes from adultery" (Dimitri
Eipides, Toronto I.F.F.). Iran 1991. Director: Mohsen Makhmalbaf. Cast: Shiva Gered,
Abdolrahman YalmaÝ, Aken Tunc. Colour, 35mm, in Turkish with English subtitles. 75 mins.
The Boycott (Baaykot)
Set in the years before Iran's 1979 revolution, Makhmalbaf's The Boycott is the story of a
young anti-Shah activist who forsakes his family for the cause of leftist politics. His
arrest by the Shah's secret police imposes great hardship on his wife, and his new
acquaintance with Muslim opponents of the regime eventually leads him to rethink his
ideology. "Makhmalbaf's political aim of attacking a soulless, atheistic left is
uppermost in the story" (Deborah Young, International Film Guide). The
director's follow-up film was The Peddler, which marked a creative turning point in his
career, and proved to be his international breakthrough. Iran 1985. Director: Mohsen
Makhmalbaf. Cast: Majid Majidi, Mohammad Kassebi, Zohreh Sarmadi. Colour, 35mm, in Farsi
with English subtitles. 85 mins.
Marriage of the Blessed
(Arousi-e Khouban)
"The cinematic flair which distinguished The Peddler and The Cyclist is
stretched to new heights in Marriage of the Blessed" (The Film Center,
Chicago). Makhmalbaf's controversial take on the Iran-Iraq war concerns a shell-shocked
veteran struggling to readjust to civilian life. Haji (Mahmud Bigham), the recently
discharged protagonist, is a photojournalist engaged to the daughter of a wealthy family.
Tormented by nightmarish visions of his time at the front, obsessed with famine in Africa
and the chaos in Lebanon, and unable to cope with the everyday indifference to poverty and
injustice on the streets of Tehran, he hurtles towards another mental breakdown as his
wedding approaches. "Makhmalbaf is nothing if not ambitious in the thematic and
visual aspects of Marriage of the Blessed: shot in colour and black-and-white, with
neo-realist scenes of the seedy side of Tehran juxtaposed against hallucinatory scenes of
Haji's memories and nightmares, Makhmalbaf is. . . using Haji's shell-shocked condition as
a metaphor for the state of contemporary Iran" (Vancouver I.F.F.). "A deeply
unsettling work which examines the legacy of war with uncommon insight. . . The film, a
kind of Iranian Born on the Fourth of July, elicited conflicting critical reaction
in Tehran. Some considered it an anti-war, and even an anti-Islamic revolution film, while
others viewed it as an elegy to a generation that suffered while others profited from the
war. There is no question that it is a profoundly shocking portrayal of a man traumatized
by the horrors of modern warfare" (Piers Handling, Toronto I.F.F.). Iran 1989.
Director: Mohsen Makhmalbaf. Cast: Mahmud Bigham, Roya Nonahali, Mohsen Zehtab. Colour and
B&W, 35mm, in Farsi with English subtitles. 75 mins.
The Actor
(Honarpisheh)
In his feature follow up to Once Upon a Time, Cinema, Mohsen Makhmalbaf continues
the cinematic horseplay with a "contemporary, semitragic farce about a burly film
actor who wants to play only in art films but is forced by his family's economic demands
to act in a string of trashy commercial movies. His tormented wife, infertile and obsessed
with having a baby, insists that her husband marry and impregnate a second wife, a
deaf-mute Gypsy, to provide them with a child. What keeps the picture frenetic, apart from
the hysterical action and the satirical treatment of the Iranian media, is the couple's
surreal, high-tech home and Makhmalbaf's hyperbolic, eccentric mise en scene, which fit
together hand in glove (as they were undoubtedly designed to do). The three lead actors --
Akbar Abdi, playing some version of himself, Fatemeh Motamed-Aria, and Mahaya Petrossian
-- were all in Once Upon a Time, Cinema, and there appear to be some
cross-references (such as the hero's Chaplin worship), but here the tone is more caustic,
the inventiveness more pointed. . . [The Actor] is a comic allegory about the rift
between traditional and contemporary Iran, in which class differences and cultural
differences are equally pertinent" (Jonathan Rosenbaum, Chicago Reader). Iran
1993. Director: Mohsen Makhmalbaf. Cast: Akbar Abdi, Fatemeh Motamed-Aria, Mahaya
Petrossian. Colour, 35mm, in Farsi with English subtitles. 88 mins.
Mohsen
Makhmalbaf: Retrospective
Donato Totaro 1997, Septembre 18
Early in 1997 the CCA
(Cinémathèque Canada) ran a near complete retrospective on Iranian director Mohsen
Makhmalbaf. After viewing Gabbeh (1996) and The Peddler I was hooked and on
my way to discovering a remarkable new cinema talent, or as I overheard a person say
outside the CCA theatre, “ca c’est cinema d’auteur.” From what I’ve
seen so far Mohsen is at least the equal of Abbas Kiarostami, and in terms of eclecticism,
commands a much more varied cinematic style. It’s also apparent that the spirit of
neo-realism and Zavattini’s ideals about making social cinema with as little “plot”
as possible and about ordinary, everyday happenings and social actors lives on in Iranian
cinema (Kiarostami included here). A Moment of Innocence is an excellent example of
Makhmalbaf’s self defining term, “poetic realism.” The film, as are so many
Iranian films, has a reflexive subject matter which reconstructs personal history and
makes it into a poignant making-of film. The film is based on a real incident that took
place in pre- revolution Iran when Mohsen was a anti-shah militant. The film replays a
single event which occurred 20 years ago, when Mohsen, using a girl as a decoy, disarmed
and stabbed (not fatally) a police officer from the Shah’s regime. Both the actor
playing the police officer and Makhmalbaf as himself coach their respective younger
versions. At times the film ruptures linear temporality with events occurring out of
sequence (like in Kiarostami’s Close-Up ). For example, 53:00 minutes into the
film we see the young actor/officer, original older officer and cameraman rehearsing a
scene. A funeral march walks past and the older man and cameraman join to help carry the
coffin. The young officer places the potted plant he was holding onto a nearby sill and
runs after them. When he returns the plant is missing. He asks a old passerby if he has
seen the plant then runs off in its quest, finding it with a group of women outside a
bakery. The incident appears complete and the scene cuts to another location.
Approximately seven minutes later we return to the same space and see a girl pick up the
potted plant from the sill. She runs out of the frame and seconds later we see the young
actor/officer running back into the frame and discovering that the potted plant is
missing. Here Makhmalbaf achieves a clever form of reflexivity by reminding us of the
arbitrariness of continuity editing by the simple overlapping of a narrative event. The
film maintains its pseudo docu-drama veneer until the final ten or so minutes when the
film’s symbolic meaning rises to the forefront. The two sets of characters symbolize
the different value systems of the pre- and post-revolution generations. The scene they
are recreating, as it occurred in the past, should go as such: the young Mohsen, with his
knife hidden under a loaf of bread, trails behind his cousin, who stops to ask the officer
for the time. When the officer is distracted by the girl, Mohsen stabs the officer and
disarms him. Both players are coached by their respective "real" alter-ego's.
The young Makhmalbaf is instructed to stab the officer; the young officer is instructed to
behave like an officer. The officer-turned actor poses behavioral problems throughout the
film for director Mohsen with his temperamental threats to leave the film, first over the
selection of which actor to play his younger self and later after he comes to the shocking
realization that the girl he loved for twenty years was an accomplice to his stabbing. The
older ex-officer returns to the past through film but plans to change the nature of the
events, to redeem his past folly. Angered by the girl's complicity, he instructs his young
self to shoot the girl when she asks him for the time, rather than follow historical
course. The young man is unable to do the gesture, so the officer plays it out for him,
with his violent act ending in a frozen image.
We now cut to the coaching of the young Makhmalbaf, a sensitive young man whose goal in
life is no less than to “save humanity.” He buys the necessary bread, only to
give most of it away to a street beggar with a child. One loaf remains. Makhmalbaf
prepares to rehearse the scene, but his young actor breaks out in tears and is unable to
go through with the violent event, even if it is fairy tale. The remaining scenes are
played in close shot, with the older “real” set of characters no longer visible.
We are now experiencing the event as from the perspective of the young, post-revolution
generation. The scene begins, with the officer clutching his revolver and the girl slowly
drawing nearer with the boy a few paces behind. She stops, asks him for the time; nothing
happens and she repeats her question. We get a close-up of the hand on the gun holster and
a fuller shot of the young Mohsen nearing with the bread in hand. A quick cut and slow
motion speed blurs the action momentarily and then the image freezes with the action in
mid-course: rather than gun/knife we see the officer handing over the potted plant and the
young Mohsen handing over the loaf of bread. The replacement of the flower/bread for the
gun/knife speaks a poetic volume on the changed generations and makes for a powerful
conclusion. (Albiet controversial in Iran, where the film is seen as anti-revolutionary
and is still currently banned.)
The Peddler is another kettle of fish, though I much enjoyed its amazing
inventiveness and visual poetry. Three separate (though partly linked) stories relate the
common theme of how people are always ready to capitalize on the miseries of others (also
a central theme of The Cyclist ). The 1st story, "A Happy Child," based
on a story by Italian neo-realist Alberto Moravio, is a stark blend of the comic and the
horrific, set around the story of a poor husband and wife (cousins) with four crippled
children who try to abandon their fifth child because they fear it will too become cripple
if they keep it. (It is also implied that they can not afford a healthy child, perhaps
because they get no compensation for it.) They style is very kinetic, with a constantly
moving camera and quick, choppy edits. As in classic neo-realism, children play a central
role, but there is no sentimentalism here. The couple try to drop the child off at a
hospital for lost or mental children but the hospital can not accept the baby since it is
neither. The mother goes off on her own with baby in hand and strolls into the ward for
mentally ill babies and children. The scene is shot mainly from her subjective pov and
what she/we see are strikingly horrific images of disfigured, physically mutated children.
After many failed attempts the parents feel they have finally assured the baby’s good
future by leaving it on a rich family’s lawn. The final shot is fitting of Browning’s
Freaks (1932) for shock value. It begins on a close-up off the baby in what we
assume is a comfortable crib. The camera cranes up to reveal a huge oversized baby head
and continues upward to reveal the ward we saw earlier.
Part two, “The Birth of an Old Woman,” is the most highly stylized thing
Makhmalbaf has directed to date. A man-child lives in a small city flat with a wheelchair
bound mother who looks not a day over 105 and a striking cross between Grampa from the Texas
Chainsaw clan and Ms. Bates (the white, bun-style hair and creaky rocking chairs also
recall Psycho .) Makhmalbaf doesn’t underplay her monstrous, unreal
appearance, but foregrounds it with extreme close-up's of her face that show cracks in her
facial make-up. Her son is completely over the top, a Norman Bates on speed, angrily
yelling at the top of his lungs and threatening to finally leave her mother to marry and
settle down. The sequence is a tour-de-force of camera position and inventive shot
designs. For example, the mother sees the world in black & white, perhaps suggesting
her long ago world. One shot assumes a literal eye pov and slowly turns to black with a
horizontal downward wipe. The son places mom on the balcony overlooking the busy street
and goes out to buy her medicine and food. A nasty car accident keeps him away from home
for an extended period. We cut back to a night shot of the mother still on the balcony. As
a car drives by we cut the mother's black & white pov shot of a gaudy, white
swan-shaped wedding car driving her just married son. Crosscuts between a grandfather
clock slowly coming to a stop and the mother signal her death. The next scene has the
heavily bandaged son in the apartment acting as if nothing has changed. The final shot is
of the son venting a primal scream as he stares into a shattered mirror.
The third and least effective episode, “The Peddler,” is an exercise in character subjectivity. The story bridges the previous powerful ending by showing a gratuitous lamb slaughtering. The story follows a man who has witnessed a murder committed by an underground black market organization. Two henchmen find him and drive him to their boss. The man continually imagines his murder, only to cut back to a reality where he is still alive. This audience deception is carried on right up until the end, where he narrowly escapes from an impossible situation but stumbles, wounded, onto an eerie, isolated backstreet. The image is of three dead men, covered in icy white frost and speaking in a mechanized modulation, looking over him. He appears to be dying but, again, we are fooled by a cut back to his body lying at the previous location (only now he is dead). This segment recalls the similar play with subjectivity and death in Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge (1961).
The Cyclist is based on an
real incident Makhmalbaf witnessed as a 10-year old boy, when a Pakistan refugee cycled
for ten days non-stop to raise money for flood victims in Pakistan. In the film a poor
Afghan man is reduced to performing a similar marathon act - riding a bicycle non-stop
around a square for a full week- in order to raise money for his sick wife’s hospital
treatment. Though the film is a wonderful reaffirmation of the human spirit, it is
somewhat less interesting than the other films, partly because the subject matter wasn’t
very cinematic. After all, how much variety can there be in a story where a man cycles in
a small circle for one week! In keeping with Iranian cinema's predilection for
reflexivity, a scene from They Shoot Horses, Don’t They ? seen playing in a
television bar foreshadows the film's plot and its theme of human fortitude.
The film again shows the Iranian debt to neo-realism in its structure and certain scenes.
It parallels Bicycle Thieves in its scenes of a closely knit father and son walking
through the city looking for a way to provide for the ill wife/mother. Some of the best
moments are those where the father/son witness an old man’s pathetic suicide attempt
by lying in front of the back wheel of a bus. Makhmalbaf milks every agonizing moment by
crosscutting from the bus about to start to the father’s face. A third party sees the
old man and saves his life, only to initiate a beating lesson which itself nearly kills
the poor old man! A few spectators angrily throw money at the old man so that he won’t
try it again. This gives our desperate hero an idea and in the next shot we see the father
lying in front of the wheels! The level of desperation reflected by the suicide attempt
recalls Umberto D (1951), where a poverty-stricken senior also resorts to throwing
himself in front of a train as a remedy to his economic and moral decline (only to be
saved by the thought of how his dog would get along without him.) The film ends with a low
angle freeze frame of the victorious father on his bike (the freeze frame was also used to
conclude A Moment of Innocence .
I also saw Close-up (1990) by Abbas Kiarostami starring Makhmalbaf in the true story of a poor man (Ali Sabzian) who impersonates director Mohsen Makhmalbaf to ingratiate himself into a rich household on the pretext that he wants to use them and their house in his next film. The film is not as interesting formally as some of Kiarostami's other works, but holds value in its subtle layering of how important a role cinema plays in Iran and the interfacing between reality and cinema. Kiarostami uses different film stock for the court scenes (grainy) and scenes at the house; and employs an inside-out time structure (similar to the scene described in Moment of Innocence). The film begins with a reporter driving to the house to inform the family about the imposter. When the reporter goes inside the camera remains outside with the cab driver and the two young officers in the back, lingering on their inconsequential dialogue. We then cut to a court scene. After a long court scene we cut backwards in time to the deception in process. The action of the opening scene returns as we see the reporter with two officers ringing the doorbell. The film concludes with the patient, kindly judge exonerating the imposter. The real Makhmalbaf meets the imposter, Ali Sabzian, and takes him on motorbike to the duped family to thank them. The imposter, in tears, hands flowers over to the man. Again, a freeze frame ends the film.
Poetry that cuts through Hollywood lies
Chris Philpott
Iranian filmmaker Moshen Makhmalbaf talks with Chris Philpott about his work, the new interest in his nation’s cinema and the struggle for reality.
In Moshen Makhmalbaf’s 1989 film Marriage of the Blessed, there is a scene in which a journalist is overcome by his memories of the Iran-Iraq war while writing about them. The scene cuts rapidly between the journalist madly typing away and scenes of carnage on the battlefield. The two locations slowly merge: the typewriter’s tap-tap-tap becomes the ack-ack-ack of a machine gun and we see the journalist’s fingers tapping wildly at the typewriter which sprays bullets at soldiers writhing and falling in the background.
As the work of Iranian filmmakers started to break into the world’s festivals in the early 90s, Makhmalbaf seemed like the oddball of the group. Iranian cinema, typified by the work of Abbas Kiarostami (Through the Olive Trees), tends to be quiet, refined and uncompromisingly realistic, whereas a film like Marriage of the Blessed is loud, wild and larger than life.
In recent years Makhmalbaf has matured as a director. He is still the most audacious and inventive of Iranian filmmakers, but now his films have a stateliness and realism that rivals Kiarostami’s. Makhmalbaf’s three most recent films, Salaam Cinema, Gabbeh and Moment of Innocence are among the most beautiful films of the last few years, all quite different from each other, but realizing their intentions almost perfectly.
I spoke with Makhmalbaf through a translator at this year’s Toronto International Film Festival. Leaning back in his chair, he spoke slowly about the resurgence of Iranian cinema.
"Twenty years ago Iranian
cinema died as a result of the influence of Hollywood. But when Hollywood cinema was
stopped after the revolution, Iranian cinema became alive again. Ten years ago no festival
in the world would want to have Iranian films in it. Now there is no festival around the
world without them. The path we are taking is completely opposite to world cinema. Films
that come from Iran don’t have sex and violence. They don’t get their attraction
from anything more than reality and poetry."
Another reason for the recent popularity of Iranian filmmakers is the deep love and
optimism they show for cinema -- even tough Hollywood appears poised to gobble up the
world market. Makhmalbaf’s Salaam Cinema, a tribute to the centenary of motion
pictures, is a documentary that records what happens when he puts an ad casting for actors
in a small Tehran newspaper. Five thousand people show up for the auditions, but because
there are only one thousand applications, trampling and rioting occur. The passion for
cinema is one that Iranian audiences seem to share.
"Iranian cinema is like a mirror that’s in front of the Iranian people and they
can see themselves, whereas in Hollywood film, you see lies. Those lies can’t solve
the real problems of the people. Most of those who act in Iranian films are typical,
average people. It’s not like Hollywood films where one person is going to solve all
the problems of the world. He has to fight with 10,000 people and he surpasses two million
problems. The Iranian actor has to see how he can get his friend’s notebook to his
friend’s home."
Iranian filmmakers are devoted to recording everyday reality; "God doesn’t
forgive a liar," says one of the characters in Makhmalbaf’s Gabbeh. But
the finest Iranian directors, Kiarostami and Makhmalbaf, include elements in their films
which question the limits of realism. Referring to the camera’s sometimes intrusive
presence, Makhmalbaf says "the problem is that the reality dies in front of the
camera. I prefer to kill the camera to maintain the reality."
Makhmalbaf’s Moment of Innocence may not quite manage to kill the camera, but
in some scenes he does the next best thing: eliminate the director. When Makhmalbaf was a
young activist working to overthrow the Shah’s regime, he was imprisoned for stabbing
a police officer. A few years ago, the police officer found Makhmalbaf and convinced him
to make a film about it.
In the movie, Makhmalbaf and the
policeman seek actors to play themselves as young men, and each directs the young version
of himself. The film moves between the "making-of" scenes to the staged
depiction of the event with fluidity, grace and a wry sense of humor. The young actors
repeatedly rebel against the instructions of the "real" characters, and often
decisions are deferred until "Mr. Makhmalbaf gets here."
"Reality is a prism," says Makhmalbaf. "From whichever angle you look at,
it’s different. When someone goes to stab a police officer he or she sees the reality
of that police officer as a fascist member of the government. Whereas, if you look at it
from the perspective of the police officer, his attacker is a young, ugly person in love.
If I can influence my audience to learn that every reality has different angles, much war
and violence would cease because they’d realize that many things could be solved with
dialogue. If you want to look at my style, it’s something between reality and ideas,
between politics and poetry, between documentary and narrative."
Makhmalbaf’s style does not
sit so neatly between these oppositions; it yokes them together and revels in the
paradoxes that result. And one of the central paradoxes of his work is that few directors
try as hard to erase themselves from their films, and few put so much of themselves into
it (he has appeared in many of his films). In Salaam Cinema he is often cruel and
short-tempered in dealing with his actors: "You have thirty seconds to cry. If you
can’t cry, get out." Then, a moment later he is sweet and comforting.
As our interview neared its completion I said something about Iranian cinema not being
"such a business," and that, or perhaps a mistranslation, made him angry.
"I didn’t say it’s not a business!" He then went on brusquely about
the need for any film to make its money back. He ended by saying, "If I want to do
business, I would get a big budget, I would make an action-sexy film, I would buy a big
house, I would buy a big car, and I would continue my filmmaking career while the
Americans would continue their war against the world and continue to sell their
weapons."
He stared at me in silence and then the translator informed me that the interview was
over. As I began packing my things, I told Makhmalbaf that I thought his films were
beautiful. He stopped and for the first time during our interview, spoke in English.
"Which one of my films you prefer ", he asked"
"I like them all," I said. "But my favorite is Moment of Innocence.
At the end, in that freeze frame, I cried. It was very, very beautiful."
Makhmalbaf smiled and said, "Thank you." Then he added in Persian, "The
whole film is that one picture."
With the simplest of images -- a shot of a loaf of bread and a flower vase -- Makhmalbaf
captures the richest of meanings. The entire film builds toward this one image, and it
becomes a celebration, after so many years of turbulence and violence in Iran, of a
generation that can grow up in peace.
Carpet Ride
Iranian film weaves a magical
tale
Richard von Busack
OLD MARRIED COUPLES sometimes talk to each other through a third party, an inanimate object or a cat (often an inanimate object in itself). So maybe the magical-realist conceit of Gabbeh, an Iranian film by Mohsen Makhmalbaf, may not be too much of a strain to accept. Camping in a pasture, an old man and woman are grousing tenderly about which of them is going to wash their carpet in a cold stream; while the carpet is rinsed, a woman emerges from it, calling herself Gabbeh (Shaghayeh Djodat). "Gabbeh" is the word for a kind of hand-woven carpet used by nomads as a bedroll.
Gabbeh tells of a young girl's frustration as she is prohibited from marrying by her father. Her marriage is postponed again and again by incidents in the life of her tribe: migrations, other marriages, births and deaths. This is how Makhmalbaf examines the fabric, as it were, of the lives of these wandering weavers, and rarely have simple lives looked so bewitching on screen. The nomads dress so colorfully as to make the Gypsies look like the Amish. Gathering the flowers that carpet their pastures for dye, they can study he nature of color as they work.
If you've longed for the compositions of the old Western cattle-drive movies, you might find something to like in Gabbeh. But unlike Westerns, this is a strongly feminist movie. Weaving is a woman's job, and so the director stays with the women throughout. Even the tyrannical father has but a few lines. While it's the rule of a daughter's obedience to her father that causes Gabbeh to suffer, this film isn't a weeper. The flash-forwards and the incidents of the tribe's story make the delayed marriage a narrative thread, not a bore.
Makhmalbaf is the premier filmmaker in Iran. His last film seen here, at the 1997 San Francisco International Film Festival, was A Moment of Innocence. Almost too good to be true, A Moment of Innocence tells the real-life story of how the director was reunited with the policeman he stabbed as a student rebel during the last days of the Shah. Both of these films are comedies of a sort. Makhmalbaf's fatalism doesn't overwhelm the richness of life he observes but rather spices it. Gabbeh--so different from A Moment of Innocence but just as fascinating--shows that Makhmalbaf is not just a great filmmaker, but a great filmmaker with a great range.
|
|
|
