Iran: a cinematographic revolution

June 15, 5:58 PMSacramento Movie ExaminerKathleen Kelly

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Theatrical Poster

As green banners and flags by the thousands wave in support of Mir Hossein Mousavi, the reformist candidate in Iran's recent presidential election, we are bombarded with images and reportage that reminds us of those tense early days of the 1979 revolution. A peaceful reformist demonstration and rally now moves toward violence as riot police prepare for heightened protests to the "reelection" of President Ahmadinejad.

These images are mirrored images of the opening archival footage of Nadar Takmil Homayoun's feature-length documentary "Iran: A Cinematographic Revolution" (2007).  He evocatively opens his film with the Shah's departure from Iran and the frenzied and energized street marches and protests that demand the departure of their despotic monarch.  Chanting "Death to the Shah", Homayoun reminds us that this revolutionary fervor and zealotry was marked with both idealism and beauty in 1979 before it turned on itself, carnivorous and ugly.  One of those ugly turns was for the revolution to attack the symbols of Pahlavi decadence including the theatre houses and cinemas.  

Using archival footage and interviews with filmmakers, film executives, and film ministers (bureaucratic members of the Islamic Republic), Nadar Takmil Homayoun chronicles the history of film in Iran from the silent films to the talkies and the significance of the ascendency of the Pahlavis during the October Revolution for the transformation of Iran and specificially, the embrace of film in interwar Iran.  As film director, Nosratollah Karimi states, "to Reza Shah we owe modernization not civlization." Mohammad Reza Shah, Reza Shah's successor, is unabashedly tied to the United States (after all our CIA did help him to regain his position and title of Shah with the overthrow of the democratically-elected Prime Minister Mossadegh in 1953).  The Shah was quite influenced by American cinema and the lure of Hollywood during the 1950s and 1960s.  With this, there was great influence of American cinema on Iranian cinema.  Yet there were some cracks in the veneer of a prosperous and fair society for all in Iran with the production and distribution of Dariush Merjui's "The Cow" (1969) and Masud Kimiai's "Gheisar" (1969) and "Dash Akol" (1971). Whereas the Shah hosted lavish and costly events in his gilded palace, the rural populace and working underclass of Iran found themselves in dire circumstances: starving, begging, stealing, prostituting. Merjui's realist treatment of poverty in a rural village, a village that owned one cow for its prosperity and the desperation and obsession of his protagonist for the cow depicted poverty not as dignified or innocent but as ugly, bitter, and desperate.  As Hamid Reza Sadr writes in "Iranian Cinema: A Political History", [t]his was the first Iranian film to deal with the small-scale, the unredeemed and the unheroic."  "Gheisar" continues this trope of the unheroic and fully develops the anti-hero.  Set in south Tehran's tough and working class neighborhoods, "Gheisar" focuses on the vengeful thoughts and violent actions of Gheisar (portrayed brilliantly by Behrooz Vossoughi) after the rape of his sister.  His is a quest of honor but an honor now steeped in blood and physical, corporeal punishment of those who have dishonored his sister.  Whereas dueling scenes in "Dash Akol" were steeped in the wielding and displays of swords, the honorable weapon of the Qajar period, without overt bloodshed, "Gheisar" is blood-drenched from altercations in bars to the assassination scene in the public bath.  These films portend the storm that will erupt in 1979.

"Iran: A Cinematographic Revolution" traces the development of Iran's film industry, which has always been closely intertwined with the country's tumultuous political history, from the decades-long reign of Reza Shah Pahlavi and his son, the rise of Imam Khomeini, and the birth of the Islamic Republic, the seizure by militants of the U.S. Embassy in Tehran, and the devastating war with Iraq (1980-1988).  This documentary will provide insight into the discussion of former president Khatami's more moderate rule and the social liberties and rights that spirit the current pro-reform, moderate movement, a movement now marching and careening through the streets of Tehran and Shiraz, a movement that demands both a domestic and international audience.