Sunday, May 05, 2013
NOT A FILM
I watched the apparent but not really film
And he is correct. This is not a film. It is a protest or an act of rebellion.
Confined to his house, the Iranian film maker Jafar Panahi videos an hour and 15 minutes of talk about how he would have made a film if he were not under house arrest. And if he were permitted to do so.
Panahi is not illegal. There is no law broken. It is an arbitrary ruling without a law behind it by some provisional council of government.
We have seen this before. It is a Soviet favorite.
The result is a sort of exercise in defiance. Technically he is not violating the ban laid against him but as he does this we have no idea if he will get away with it.
It is hard to watch because it is difficult to identify with him. Partly language. Partly the futility.
At the time of this non film making, is awaiting an appeal to a sentence of prison and a 20 year moratorium on any film making.
So here he is spitting in their faces but also defying them to "catch" him as he is technically not doing the things he was told not to do. A hall of mirrors.
This not a film was smuggled out of Iran on a small USB thumb drive hidden in a cake.
He lays out the sets on the floors of his large apartment (quite modern, I guess Iran is not really third world) and does other pre production chores. He reads the script of the movie that is not being made.
I guess my feeling about it was that there is really some sick shit going down in the world and some people are not going to be done in by it.
I will give this a 3 out of Netflix5 for courage and maybe even stupidity. It is a real downer.
Labels: film
