3 Faces
Funny that you didn't care for Certified Copy, because that was the main film I was thinking about throughout the running time of this movie. Like CC, 3F has a rambling plotline without seeming to focus on on thing. The driving point for the first half is resolved about halfway through and it just seems to ramble from there. With both of these movies, the film is not about the narrative, per se. We see characters go through shifts, rather than arcs. I spent much of both films pleasantly confused, confident that there was a theme, but mystified throughout much of it. The movie makes a major shift about halfway through, which is true of not only 3F and CC, but also The Mirror, another Panahi film And you have actors and the director playing themselves, which we see in CC, TM, and other Iranian classics. I love Iranian film.
I think Certified Copy gets a little too up in the clouds with its philosophizing about the nature of reality, and I don't like the primary personalities driving the film. I think it gets a bit stuffy.
By resolving the first issue of the film, Panahi gives himself over to what I think he finds most important, which is observation. I think there is more of a pattern to what he includes of his observations to call it a ramble, with a lot of his smaller interactions with townspeople honing in on gender issues
(i.e. the foreskin, the stud dying in the road, the woman preparing for her burial). But we might take different meaning to "ramble"; I don't value traditional plot structures as much as I do keen observation. Sometimes I think plot takes away from truth, so a good ramble, so to speak, leads to more truth than a strict three-act screenplay. Which takes me to your further analysis!
So let me tell you what I think the film is about, and you tell me if you agree with me, okay? I think it has to do with the treatment of women in Iran, over three generations. The titular "three faces" are the three actresses over three generations. The Revolution generation of women, represented by Sharhazad, who is unseen in the film, bitterly angry at her treatment and shut out of her occupation. The successful generation of women is represented by Behnaz Jafari, a famous, popular actress who has little regard for the struggles of the other generations, but will assist when she can. Finally, there is Marziyeh Rezaei, who seems to commit suicide in the first scene of the film, rejected by her village, considered both useless and insane and blocked from her goals. And then you have the male protagonist, Jafar Panahi, who is in the box of his car for most of the film, looking at their struggles and empathizing while having little ability to help. Just as he is, in reality, under house arrest, unable to do much to help the women he sees struggling against oppression and trapped as much as he is from the lives that they could and should be living.
For real spoilers coming here, folks.
I agree with the reading on what 3 Faces actually means, and on your interpretation of the elder and younger of the three.
I think Jafari represents the female actor of the revolution who cares but doesn't know what to do. She has clearly internalized a lot, and the manifestation of her frustration with the current regime and its stance on women is in rushing to respond to Marziyeh's call. Her initial reaction is to slap Marziyeh for faking suicide, but then her actual stance and her empathy are able to take root once her visceral reaction to being "had" has run its course. You're really spot on with what you say about Panahi.
A big moment in the film, that feels amateurish but drips with meaning is when he lowers his seat to get out of the frame and let the camera capture the shadows of the three women in Sharhazad's hut, dancing. He's literally getting out of the way to let the women speak, though he cannot (and should not) be inside with them. One thing I think is important to take into account is that these 3 women represent different generations, but are also positioned differently in terms of the Islamic Revolution: Marziyeh suffered abuses in a film industry that was
actually a film industry pre-Revolution, maybe like a Judy Garland(?), whereas Behnaz Jafari is free to act
as the regime allows and has internalized a lot to be free privately, and Marziyeh is really suffering from a growing Revolutionary legacy, where now the country at-large has adopted backwoods views about whether a woman even
should do things such as act. Another thought is that, by going to that location, Panahi is showing Iran, Hey! This is where our politics has shifted! And yet, I feel he manages empathy toward these rural people who have fundamentally had their beliefs shaped by fundamentalist Islam and likely a lack of educational attainment. He's an enlightened, cosmopolitan dude (best seen in Closed Curtain), but he's not at all snobbish or elitist about how he approaches this locale, which even further allows you to focus on the women and what they're up to and let the truth of the patriarchy come through organically.
That was more than I expected to write, but I don't think I've had a lot of conversations about 3 Faces. I really appreciate your thoughts on this one, it's gotten me to think even more deeply, and I think it's further cemented what is quite a new film into my top 100.
I love Iranian cinema, too, though I know there's much I still need to see. Have you seen any pre-Revolutionary cinema? All I've gotten to do is read about it, and I'm curious. I'm also curious about what cinema could be were there allowed to be more of a film industry there. I mean, Persian culture is such a rich and dynamic thing, it seems so criminal that it should be so censored. I know that limitations can challenge creators to make better art, but I'd like to see what a free Iran would be doing with the art right now. Imagine an Iranian Academy Awards. OK, now
I'm rambling!