Iranian Cinema

Letter from Hong Kong (20-15): Iranian Cinema

How I became a Film Buff For as long as I can remember, films played an important part in my life. Growing up in HK in the 60's, father took us to watch many films from mainland China (nostalgia), including many opera films (father was a seasoned veteran). This was when communist rule was in its early days, when they were still maintaining traditional culture. Then came the cultural revolution, when the regime tore down all facets of tradition, not to mention the film industry. So we went to see western films. Father was not picky, westerns, vampires, everything; in fact I think he just liked to take a nap in darkness. Then he left us for the US for four years during which mother would take us to watch the cheap morning reruns of old movies. By then in my early teens I was able to remember more. The movie theater was right in the middle of the wet market. Uncomfortable wooden seats, and we sat always in the first 3 rows (cheapest). Thus I watched a considerable number of old movies, from early HK kung fu films to classic western films. A few that particularly captured me: Two for the Road for the stunning cars and scenery, and of course the great Audrey Hepburn; Hamlet (Laurence Olivier) for its brooding atmosphere and headache I incurred from seating so close; and since it was early puberty, Solomon, for the voluptuous Gina Lollobrigida (you know what I was focusing on). When I got to NYC, I had terrible jet lag and ended up watching all the Late Shows and Late late Shows. That was how I got to know many of the old films (I had a particular preference for B movies, especially those starring Alan Ladd and Veronica Lake). In college I was working at one of the first Szechuan (Sichuan) restaurants in NYC (Szechuan Omei on 72nd St) and there was a revival house nearby (close to the Ansonia on Broadway). It was dirt cheap: 10 tickets for $12.50. Imagine the bafflement of someone in his late teens watching for the first time films of Luis Brunel and Ingmar Bergman! But that triggered my life-long penchant for art films, which continued at Carnegie Hall and Bleecker Street Cinemas. In many ways, I was like the protagonist of the novel The Moviegoer, by Walker Percy (unjustly forgotten but available in the library), a lonely young man seeking refuge in the cinema.

NYC is one of the greatest place for a film buff. Beside the cinemas, which show a lot of the foreign films that I like, there is the Museum of Modern Art, which curates great retrospectives. That was how I got to watch the early films of Andrei Tarkovsky and many more. Hong Kong was not that great but I managed to catch a few.

My enthusiasm for Iranian films started in the 90's with Abbas Kiarostami, having watched at least Life, and Nothing More, Through the Olive Trees, Taste of Cherry and The Wind will Carry Us. Then followed his protege Jafar Panahi, who people most associate with the movie The White Balloon. There were others but this is not meant to be exhaustive.

Why am I suddenly writing about this? Because yesterday the movie channel showed Panahi's film Taxi (Tehran), which I had seen before. I enjoyed it so very much the second time and of course it is the best movie I had watched during my quarantine (so many junk films; I don't think I can watch another gangster or kung fu film for a while). In this film, I particularly enjoy the sequence with the Taxi driver's niece, actually the niece of Panahi, Hana Saeidi. Panahi had been banned from filming yet he continues to do it, and he breaks his confinement too. Saeidi actually represented him to receive the Golden Bear (here is an interview). What a radiantly beautiful young lady! And the lawyer is a real human rights lawyer!

Iranian films are striking for what they achieve at next-to-zero budgets. A film probably costs less than a minute of a Hollywood sequence. But the real achievement lies in their laser-sharp probe into the human condition. A humanistic concern that has little parallel in the world of cinema. And the realism and sincerity are striking. The films are not sentimental at all, never manipulated, but frequently I find myself breaking into tears. Yes, beauty of the soul and genuineness moves me, especially since our world in the US (and elsewhere) now is so full of hypocrisy, ugliness and empty slogans. More people should be watching these films.

I actually haven't gone to the cinema for at least 10 years. I caught some of these films on Chinese streaming services. That's how I got to watch Taxi the first time. Two other excellent films are A Separation and The Salesman