This Is Not a FilmJafar Panahi, 2011
This little blurb is coming FRESH out of watching this, having exited out of Kanopy a good two minutes ago.
I already know it requires a second viewing, most Panahi films do. It's clever to shoot this on Chaharshanbe Suri, which falls just before the Iranian new year, and was at the time denounced as unreligious by the regime in power. Thus, on a harmless festival that had been denounced by the government, a denounced filmmaker records his film that is not a film. And more than anything he's shot since then, this truly isn't a film in the same sense. Closed Curtain, Taxi, and 3 Faces are all tied up in his predicament of not being able to shoot films, but are all narrative fiction with a heavy metafictive quality that makes them very complex films layered with incredible meaning. Obviously everything he made before
were films, so this one is a little odd in comparison. Yet, the camera must stay ON, as is repeated in the film, and indeed it seems the cameras Panahi has around him are all left on so as to capture all the action and all the lack thereof, to capture the fundamental truth of his artistic imprisonment. There is a moment where he tries to tell one of his screenplays in lieu of actually being able to film it, and breaks down, fuming that if we could just tell the screenplay, then there would be no purpose to make a film. Between that and him going back in his own films to point out the quality that separates the cinematic from the non-cinematic - all the while taking the seemingly non-cinematic and turning it into something that would be lauded by film critics and festivals worldwide - we can truly see an artist trapped. I was thinking, at least during parts, that this might be the least of Panahi's cinematic achievements from a strictly
cinematic perspective, but also that it's clearly the most important thing he's done. For me, a great doc is often something that creates awareness, and either makes you act directly or through, in the case of the U.S., putting pressure on your elected officials or whoever else with a higher level of clout can do something meaningful. Not that bearing witness isn't important, but even through bearing witness to something such as The Cave made me consider my views on the U.S.'s place in Syria. I missed the bus on this, and largely on Panahi, having only been introduced to him a couple of years ago, but I can still understand the profundity of what I was watching. There's another film I quite adore called No One Knows About Persian Cats, which came out a few years prior. It combines narrative fiction, cinema verite, and music videos to make a compelling work about underground music in Iran, and resulted in the two leads fleeing Iran and the director having to go outside the country to finish production since he did not have a permit to shoot the film. I could see myself doing a double-header of the two at some point. They bear witness and beckon the rest of the world to look, consider us, consider the arbitrary nature of our justice system, and always fight to make sure you and yours never have to be in this position. In the transition away from our anti-democratic fascist current president to something more normal, if unsatisfying in most ways, we've had our scare, and even if we can't
really relate, we can, in a way.
Now I've seen all the Panahis. He's definitely one of my favorite directors, that was kind of known before this, though. It just cements his place of importance on my shortlist of favorites.
And I think I am going to nominate this over Honeyland in the showdown, at least if it's in jeopardy.