This is not a film (2010) (1hr 15 mins)
In 2010 Iranian director Jafar Panahi was arrested by the authorities and placed under house arrest, banned from making films for 20 years and given a six-year jail sentence for allegedly making propaganda against the regime. This fascinating documentary shows him struggling to cope with the circumstances he finds himself in.
In 2010 Iranian director Jafar Panahi was arrested by the authorities and placed under house arrest, banned from making films for 20 years and given a six-year jail sentence for allegedly making propaganda against the regime. This fascinating documentary shows him struggling to cope with the circumstances he finds himself in.
Filmed with
just one camera and a mobile phone, the film takes place entirely within the
flat block where Panahi lives, and mainly inside his living room and kitchen.
Early on we witness a phone conversation with his appeal lawyer, who offers her
opinion that the ban on making films might be overturned but the best that can
be hoped for with the prison sentence is a reduced term.
Trapped
within the flat, Panahi films a film director friend and asks him to come
around. When he arrives, Panahi starts exploring the notion of making a film
that isn’t really a film and so might not land him in further trouble. In a
fascinating sequence, he starts outlining an idea for his next film, reading
excerpts from a script and marking out with sticky on his living room carpet
the building he had researched before his arrest. In one of the most affecting
scenes in the film, Panahi, while telling the story of his proposed film to his
friend, he has to stop and walk away to compose himself. The story concerns a
woman locked in her home and the similarities with his own situation seem to
suddenly overwhelm him.
What makes
this documentary so fascinating is watching Panahi reaching towards something,
not quite knowing what he’s doing but instinctively sensing that he needs to do
it. Though generally sombre as he contemplates his likely future, he comes
alive on screen when he starts talking about this next film project. Before
your eyes, you see him become energised and passionate, his creativity bubbling
to the surface.
In the long
final sequence, Panahi gets chatting to a man who has knocked on his door to
collect his rubbish. He follows the man into the lift, filming him all the
while, and you can see the director in him taking over, searching for meaning
in this random encounter.
The film was
saved onto a USB flash drive and smuggled out of Iran in a birthday cake. It
was shown to great acclaim at the Cannes Film Festival.
Rating: 9/10
No comments:
Post a Comment