Jafar Panahi under arrest

While checking out the Cannes festival website, I was disturbed to stumble upon this article about the Iranian government's detention/imprisonment of renowned film-maker Jafar Panahi. The director of such celebrated films as The Circle and Crimson Gold, he is clearly a director of great integrity and social conscience. Given the widespread support that Roman Polanski received for his detention pending extradition for his alleged crimes, it's most disappointing that Panahi's case is all but absent from the mainstream media. The Iranian government's claims that Panahi has been detained for security reasons seems flimsy at best.

From Google News:

Panahi arrested for making anti-regime film: minister

(AFP) – 14 April 2010

TEHRAN — Iran's culture minister said on Wednesday that the award-winning filmmaker Jafar Panahi was arrested because he was making an anti-regime film, the ISNA news agency reported.

"The culture and Islamic guidance ministry asked the judiciary and the security authorities about the arrest of Mr Panahi and they told us that it is a security case," Mohammad Hosseini told ISNA.

"They informed us that this director was making a film against the regime and it was about the events that followed election," he added, referring to the unrest which rocked Iran after the disputed re-election of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad last year.

It is the first time that an Iranian official has given an explanation of the basis for Panahi's arrest.

But in an interview with AFP in mid-March, Panahi's wife, Tahereh Saeedi, denied that Panahi was making a film about post-election events, saying: "The film was being shot inside the house and had nothing to do with the regime."

She added that at that time prosecutors had yet to press any charges against her husband.

Soon after Panahi's arrest, Tehran prosecutor Abbas Jafari Dolatabadi said the filmmaker had not been detained for political reasons or because he was an artist but because he was "accused of some crimes and arrested with another person following an order by a judge."

According to opposition websites, Panahi was arrested along with 16 other people, including his wife and daughter and six human rights activists. Fourteen of those detained have been freed so far.

A vocal backer of the opposition movement, Panahi was arrested when security forces raided his Tehran home on March 1.

Fifty Iranian filmmakers and artists signed a letter in mid-March urging the authorities to release him.

Panahi, 49, is known for his gritty, socially critical movies such as "The Circle," which bagged the 2000 Venice Golden Lion award, "Crimson Gold" and "Offside," winner of the 2006 Silver Bear at the Berlin film festival.

In February, the authorities banned Panahi from leaving the country to attend the Berlin Film Festival.

MIFF 2009 Day 8 - 31/7/09

• The Man Who Came With the Snow (Mohsen Makhmalbaf, Iran/France, 2009)
• Une femme est une femme (A Woman is a Woman, Jean-Luc Godard, France/Italy, 1961)
• Tony Manero (Pablo Larrain, Chile/Brazil, 2008)

The Man Who Came With the Snow
Nice-looking film that is made by an Iranian but set in a former Soviet country. The result: a film that has elements of Iranian cinema, such as the view of an adult world from a child's perspective, as well as the dark look of Russian cinema. In the middle of the night, a man escaping a blizzard enters a village hotel, disrupting the routine of these down-and-out whores, thieves and hustlers. Who is he? Where is he from? What is he doing here? A mystery, this is a nice festival film, something you won't see otherwise, and I like its relatively short length (about 75 minutes) - it's paced just right.

A Woman is a Woman
Another Godard, another soul-less film. Funny, yes. Smart, yes. Cutting edge (for it's day), yes but dated horribly. I sense that Godard feels superior to his audience. I don't perceive the anger with his audience that I do with others, but his films are distant and don't engage me. I'm still trying to understand Godard, and I really need to read Godard on Godard, which I will. Even understanding Godard's intent, I don't think will affect me. Godard doesn't aim to connect emotionally, he's looking for an intellectual or philosophical engagement. I don't watch films for that. For that, I read books or watch TV. Perhaps that's why Godard moved to television as his medium of choice.

Tony Manero
Sex, violence, disco - what more could you want in a film? Yeah, this is pretty weird and not what I was expecting. It's no Mister Lonely and it's no Red Faces (and if it was, I wouldn't want to be Red Symons). Our Tony Manero wannabe will do anything to win a look-alike competition - anything. The film is more social realist than anything and it has a pretty gritty (even grimy) look with hand-held camera work that is generally OK but sometimes a little too wobbly. The story is quite good but the visuals are a little spartan. It's OK for a festival film but I can't see how this could get a release other than being sold on its connection with Saturday Night Fever.

The Week in Review (x2) - 19/10/08

Oh, life is bigger
It's bigger than you
And you are not me
The lengths that I will go to
The distance in your eyes
Oh no I've said too much
I set it up
- REM, Losing My Religion

This used to be my favourite song. It was important to me at an important turning point in my life, when I lost religion (even though that's not what the song is about). It's also a song that pops into my head when life is full, too full, when it's big, bigger than you. And you are not me. Get the drift?

Well, it's been two weeks. Life has been so full, and I still scarcely have time to post my weekly summary. But I want to do it, for myself at least. I can't do credit for many of these films, but here goes.

• Del rosa al amarillo (From Pink… to Yellow, Manuel Summers, Spain, 1963)
• Ta'm-e gilas (The Taste of Cherry, Abbas Kiarostami, Iran/France, 1997)
• Waitress (Adrienne Shelly, USA, 2006)
• Zert (The Joke, Jaromil Jires, Czechoslovakia, 1969)
• Kladivo na carodejnice (Witches' Hammer, Otakar Vávra, Czechoslovakia, 1969)
• Wake in Fright (Ted Kotcheff, Australia, 1971)
• Burn After Reading (Joel & Ethan Coen, USA, 2008)
• Towelhead (Alan Ball, USA, 2008)
  

From Pink… to Yellow
Screening as part of the ACMI Focus on Víctor Erice & Abbas Kiarostami, I suppose this film by Manuel Summers sneaks in as Erice has only made three films. It fits in thematically, with its depiction of life from a child's perspective. I can't say it overly grabbed me and when the narrative shifted to an elderly couple, I dozed off.

The Taste of Cherry
I loved this film, which reminded me of Kiarostami's later film, 10. Shot mostly from within a car, a guy drives around town looking for someone to assist him in his mission to take his own life. The story is elusive (we never find out his exact reasons) and it has a controversial and ambiguous ending. The story is somewhat episodic as different people find themselves in the car with our 'hero'. The different characters and their respective responses to our hero are convincing and compelling. The final character's role is just fantastic, as he shares a story with our hero. I really related to it, as he describes how he also, some decades earlier had contemplated suicide, and what got him through. It reminded me of the adolescent neighbour in American Beauty, how he saw beauty everywhere, even in a plastic shopping bag blowing in the wind, or the way light reflected in the still warm blood of his neighbour. Very moving.

Waitress
The missus was watching this on DVD and it had lost none of the sparkle that did it for me the first time on the big screen. One of the best romantic comedies of all time, not that it follows any romantic comedy conventions. For the record, my other favourites are Truly, Madly, Deeply and Like Water for Chocoloate.

The Joke
Wow, this Czech New Wave is seriously good stuff. No wonder the commies didn't let this film see the light of day for twenty years. A guy is cynical, unhappy and unable to form meaningful relationships. When he revisits his hometown, old memories flood his mind, and we learn how he got to be the person he is. Fundamentalism, in all its guises, stinks.

Witches' Hammer
Attacking exactly the same themes as The Joke, this story of medieval witch hunting is just as overt a criticism of communism, in spite of its use of metaphors. It also didn't see the light of day until 1989, when the iron curtain came down. I hadn't realised how widespread the hysteria over witchcraft was in Europe, and explains why many fled to the US (where a different form of hysteria-fundamentalism has arisen).

Wake in Fright
I was initially put off when I realised this MUFF screening was from a DVD. But once I got into it after a couple of minutes, it didn't really matter. The story is that good, and the visuals were quite OK. Now I know why this film has such a strong reputation; it is a genuine compelling film.

Burn After Reading
I found Burn After Reading absolutely entertaining. I didn't have high expectations as I think the Coen brothers get mixed results when they do comedy. The humour in this film is full of deadpan irony, greatly understated at times, farcical at others, but always unpredictable yet believable.

While it is in no way an explicit commentary on The War On Iraq, clearly that's the subtext. I'd say it's the first successful film to tackle the issue of homeland security in the US, post 9-11, simply because it doesn't reference it at all. Like most Coen films, people motivated by greed have a plan, and things don't go to plan. There's blood and a reasonable body count. As in all matters concerning national security, it doesn't matter who gets hurt, innocent or not. What's important is that leadership is decisive, bodies are disposed of and people are seen to be doing their jobs. Right?

The lineup of actors looks awesome on paper, and they don't disappoint. Most of them play against type. The film is very original, very exciting and very contemporary. Well-worth seeing.

Towelhead
With all the hysteria over Bill Henson and his photography of naked or semi-naked children, it's amazing that Towelhead has been released with scarcely a whimper of complaint.

This is quite a gutsy film, tackling taboo subjects head-on and pulling few punches. This is intelligently written. It looks like what I call a quirky-indie comedy but isn't. There's so much truthful depictions that reflect the complexity of real-life issues such as racism, teenage sex and paedophilia. Like American Beauty, there are generally no good or bad guys, but both good and bad exist in most characters.

I liked the way Towelhead doesn't force a message down your throat. You don't necessarily know Ball's stance on an issue, such as teenage sex. He just depicts it a certain way, and you make up your own mind.

Toni Collette plays a fairly typical-looking role to what she generally does in US films, but her role is better written than most (like Little Miss Sunshine et al). The visuals of the film were a little distracting for me, such as the over-use of golden-sunset hues and over-contrast, something that has been done to death on US network TV shows. Most won't have the same problem with it as I (my missus didn't even notice). There are a couple of minor scenes that slightly lacked plausibility, but for the most part, the film successfully pulled off some pretty major risks. Big kudos for that.

The Week in Review - 5/10/08

Just a quick byte tonight. This is all time permits.

FILMS

• Le fils de l'épicier (The Grocer's Son, Eric Guirado, France, 2007)
• Medium Cool (Haskell Wexler, USA, 1969)
• Petulia (Richard Lester, UK, 1968)
• Davandeh (The Runner, Amir Naderi, Iran, 1985)
• Khaneh-ye doost kojast? (Where is My Friend's House?, Abbas Kiarostami, Iran, 1987)

THEATRE

• Just Macbeth (written by Andy Griffiths, directed by Wayne Harrison, Playhouse Theatre)

The Grocer's Son
This is a French crowd-pleaser that should... dare I say... please crowds. My family liked it but for me it was just "meh". It's a meandering story, city boy goes back to his hometown in the provinces to help out with the family grocery business when the father falls ill. There's an attractive female who looks uncannily like Delta Goodrem and an array of idiosyncratic locals. Nice for a social night out, but nothing special. My main complaints are that it's too predictable and, like The Visitor, it lacks any genuine dramatic tension.

Medium Cool
An impressive film, edgy for it's time (or any time really) and the manner in which it captures a defining event is extraordinary. Wexler has crafted a fitting homage to the profession of cinematography (his normal line of work). Not without its faults, but compelling nonetheless. It screened as part of Melbourne Cinémathèque's season of Cinema '68: The Whole World is Watching, and indeed "the whole world is watching" is a line from the film. Medium Cool was an excellent selection for this season, a quintessential piece that encapsulates the political turmoil of the time. The film was complemented by the screening of Chiefs, a short documentary about crowd control devices in the wake of the Chicago convention featured in Medium Cool.

Petulia
A fairly whimsical film that lacks the bite of Medium Cool (they screened together at Cinémathèque) but is enjoyable enough.

The Runner
An impressive film with some intriguing elements. The final visuals are quite extraordinary.

Where is My Friend's House?
I have a lot of affection for Iranian cinema. I also love the frequent telling of stories from a child's perspective. Maybe I've seen too many that have used the same theme as this one, as I found it a little repetitive (even though it was made before most of those I have seen). It's a worthy film, in fact, more than a worthy film. But I felt like I'd seen much of it before. I brought my son to this (at 7, a similar age to the protagonists) and he enjoyed it. This is an aspect I like about Iranian films.

Just Macbeth
The third row (at the Playhouse) might ordinarily not be the best position for a live performance, but for this children's theatre, it was where the action was. The kid (7 years old) loves the writing of Andy Griffiths, so the common style evident in this performance was right up his alley. He laughed and laughed, learning a little about Macbeth (the play) and Shakespeare in general. Heck, even I learnt what a soliloquy is. Great fun!

Persepolis

Having seen very few new cinema releases in months, and with the flood I mentioned coming up, I'm pretty keen to take every opportunity to see the pick of the new releases before all the festivals and other seasons swamp me. Friday evenings we (the family) meet up after work/school for dinner and, if there's a suitable film (ie, something you can take a 7-year old to), we're in. With advance screenings of Persepolis, this looked ideal. And it was.

Persepolis is a French production, an autobiographical coming-of-age story about an Iranian girl who overcomes all kinds of social, political and personal adversity and eventually settles in her adopted country, France. Omigod! This sounds like an almost identical premise to the raft of Australian coming-of-age films produced in the last year or two. Except that Persepolis actually works, and works well. It is bold, funny, deep, moving, intelligent, engaging, visually appealling, uplifting, original and educational. It's really an adult film though my son loved it too (4.5/5 stars from him, and he cried as well, always a good sign).

Directed by Vincent Paronnaud & Marjane Satrapi, it tells the story of Satrapi's childhood, growing up in pre-revolution secular Teheran and how everything changed with the demise of the Shah, the war with Iraq and the takeover by religious fundamentalism. Marjane marries young, much to the consternation of her lively (and some could say feminist) grandmother. Eventually she leaves for Europe.

I was astounded at how entertaining an overview of modern Iranian political history could be. The film confidently and competently includes just enough detail to give us a sense of historical perspective without getting stuck in tedious details. But the main reasons it works so well are: (1) the telling of the story from a child's perspective, and (2) the novel way in which characters are presented, especially Marjane's very endearing grandmother.

Watching the film, I couldn't help but think of the parallels with contemporary Australian cinema. This is the kind of film we could (and should) be making. As far as animation, we have the talents of award-winners like Adam Elliot (Harvey Krumpet), Anthony Lucas (Jasper Morello) and others. Animated or not, it doesn't matter. This film demonstrates how to tell a compelling personal story, full of meaning and feeling, and imbued with humour.

The film's visuals are very appealling. The present is depicted in colour, with the bulk of the story in the past where a sort of tinted black and white is used. It looks fantastic. As I mentioned, it's a great story for children if, like me, you give credit to their capacity to understand complex concepts (ie, this is no Lion King or Finding Nemo). The use of well-paced and well-placed humour gives younger ones plenty of hooks into the story, even if they don't completely understand everything.

Persepolis has won a swag of awards including the sharing of the Jury Prize with Silent Light (one of my MIFF 2008 favourites) at Cannes last year. Advance screenings take place this weekend, and it opens next Thursday. I highly recommend it.

Did anyone else see it at MIFF? Or since? What did you think?

By the way, I saw this at the Kino and learnt that the Kino is now part-owned by Palace Cinemas. I knew that long time co-owner was looking for a new partner after his run with Dendy ended (due to Dendy's being sold to Icon Films). This explains why the upcoming Italian Film Festival is screening at 3 other Palace cinemas and the Kino.

MIFF Day 12

Half Moon (Niwemang, Bahman Ghobadi, Iran/Iraq/Austria/France, 2006)
Half Moon is a road movie with a difference. An elderly man Moma (portrayed with great range and nuance by Ismail Ghaffari), a celebrity singer in his native Iraqi Kurdistan, sets out by bus from Iran with an entourage of his musician sons to his homeland to perform in a large public concert. With seven months of rehearsals, official permits and visas carefully arranged, nothing could go wrong, right? Well, this is border country between bitter enemies Iran, Iraq and the highly marginalised Kurds who are basically a dispossessed people without a country and held in contempt by both countries as well as Turkey. This film illustrates what can go wrong.

While beautifully filmed in some beautifully stark landscapes, the real richness of Half Moon - like most Iranian films screened here - is in the simplicity of the story and the attention to detail to the struggles of seemingly mundane activities. The cultural aspects are especially fascinating. The authority of Moma as the family patriarch is evident; his middle aged sons all hold him in high esteem and cower before him. Not unexpectedly, as Iran does not allow women to sing in public, there are specific issues with involving a woman in such a cultural endeavour.

The family and social dynamics depicted breathe life into this little gem of a film. Music is a universal language that binds people, so when contempt is shown by the Iranian border guards, it has a powerful effect on the audience. My in-laws are similarly musicians of a dispossessed people (Pontians, Greek orthodox who once lived in Turkey), so I could relate well to the scenario in the film. The subtle politics in the film relate to the current state in the region, and it's regrettable that the film has been banned in Iran (the government considers it pro-separatist).

It was interesting to see the advancement of technologies such as cell phones and wireless internet laptops creeping into these otherwise isolated communities. The film is full of beautifully understated performances and naturalistic humour and drama. I highly recommend it and, like most Iranian films I have seen, is something I would take my six year old son to see (were it to get a theatrical release).

Half Moon screened as part of MIFF's International Panorama. It screens again on Friday 10 August at 5pm at the Forum Theatre.

Links: Interview with the director / And another / Official website

Brand Upon the Brain! (Guy Maddin, USA/Canada, 2006)
With the exception of a few brief seemingly random shots, Brand Upon the Brain! is shot (or made to appear in post-production to be shot) in grainy black and white. The look is reminiscent of David Lynch's Eraserhead, a classic that may have been an influence, though the style is quite different. Maddin's film uses much more frenetic editing techniques, particularly frequent cutting to create an abrasive subliminal effect from which the title appears to be derived.

I use the term 'abrasive' and for some people that might be a negative, but I found it effective. The film uses captions and along with a neo-silent-era visual design, it has the effect of a coherent experimental film with a bizarre horror narrative. A man, Guy, returns to the island orphanage of his parents after a thirty year absence, on the request of his dying mother. It turns out the parents were subjecting the orphans to some peculiar activities from which Guy escaped.

I found the design, high-contrast lighting and editing techniques effective in conveying a bizarre nightmare-type of story, a horror film that is not entirely original in narrative nor design, yet original in its presentation. I liked the voice-over narration by Isabelle Rosellini. There are some very attractive characterisations and depictions of inoffensive perversity. It's not an earth-shattering highlight of MIFF, but is a good film to enhance the diversity of screenings in a festival context. Definitely worth a look.

Brand Upon the Brain! screened as part of MIFF's International Panorama. It screens again on Wednesday 8 August at 9.20pm at the Forum Theatre.

Links: Offical website / Interview with the director

Fay Grim (Hal Hartley, USA, 2006)
Fay Grim is the continuation of a story begun ten years earlier with Hartley's Henry Fool. I haven't seen the earlier film, and I don't know if that's a good thing or not. I can only regard the current film on its own merits.

For most people, Hal Hartley's style of film-making is something that you either like or you don't. His combination of action, drama, absurdity and dry, ironic humour really resonates with me, and Fay Grim is no exception. It has an air of sharply-written intelligent parody that had myself and many in the audience laughing out loud. For the first half of the film it was relentless and delivered with deadpan straightness. It's a style of humour sadly lacking in cinemas and a welcome relief to the mindless teen comedies that Hollywood pumps out like pancakes.

During the second half of the film, the humour starts to thin as the film morphs into an international espionage/conspiracy thriller. Whether this was Hartley's intention or whether he ran out of ideas is not clear, but I think a bit of editing or re-writing to cut fifteen minutes off the film would have maintained the film's original momentum.

The performances were generally good, particularly Parker Posey and Jeff Goldblum, who had the most screen time. Saffron Burrows, James Urbaniak, Carl Montgomery and Elina Löwensohn all played good support roles. The film's visuals were nice (set in New York, Paris, Berlin and Istanbul) and the music (also by Hartley) was good without being intrusive. The camera angles are mostly off-kilter and point up at the characters - a device that seems designed to accentuate the absurdity of the plot. It initially distracted me as I tried to follow which way the camera was skewed, but then when I just went with the flow it was fine. The film is well-written and I enjoyed this it immensely. If you like Hartley's earlier work, you'll probably like this.

Fay Grim screened as part of MIFF's International Panorama. It screens again on Saturday 11 August at 9.40pm at the Regent Theatre. It also has some kind of future local release, though it's unclear whether it will be theatrical or DVD, or when. Official website.

Links: Index of MIFF films reviewed to date / MIFF website