MFA film festival offers anew look at modern Iran
Sadly, it's easy to stereotype -- even demonize -- an entire people.
Take Iran. We hear "Tehran" and instantly recall memories of the Carter-era hostage crisis. The word "Iranians" evokes not poetry or music, but nuclear threat. In this terror-ridden age of aligning nation-states along axes of good or evil, fear overpowers our imaginations.
Among other points, the Museum of Fine Arts' 13th annual Festival of Films From Iran proves that many Americans need to update their image of modern Iran. The urban, middle-class protagonists of these smart, poignant, and innovative movies own flat-screen TVs, eat pasta, and go to couples therapy. They suffer the machinations of governmental leaders with whom they don't always see eye to eye, but they don't let the political climate cloud their singular lives. They are a nation struggling with modernity and tradition, redefining love, relationships, and personal expression.
"We are at the mercy of these contradictions and can't do anything against it," says musician Moshen Namjoo, interviewed in "Sounds of Silence," a documentary on Iran's underground music scene. "It's with us all our lives. When you leave the house here you may see a mullah [religious cleric] in his robe eating a hamburger with his mobile in his hand."
One of the highlights of the 18-film festival, which opens Friday and runs through Dec. 3, "Sounds of Silence" skillfully reveals a generation of musicians and singers eager to bridge East and West. They long to blend rap and rock with traditional Iranian instruments, but the reformist climate has suffered since president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad took office in 2005. Lyrics must be approved by the government; women still aren't allowed to be lead singers. Some musicians flee to Berlin or Toronto, others choose to stay in Tehran to "keep it real," several say, adopting the words of American rappers. A band like O-Hum makes the best of this tricky situation, setting Rumi's classical verses to driving beats, bending the rules, yet careful not to break them.
Youth dominate society, partly because the Iran-Iraq war of the 1980s killed as many as a million Iranians who would now be entering middle age. According to "Sounds of Silence," 65 percent of the population is 25 or younger. The so-called Children of the Revolution don't want a revolution of their own, or so they claim on camera. But sooner or later, enormous changes seem inevitable.
One such revolution will likely come to marriage, the subject of "Cease Fire," which takes its cues from 1930s-era screwball comedies. Directed by Tahmineh Milani, this festival opener isn't shy about controversy. The opinionated, independent Sayeh wants to divorce Yousef, her stubborn chauvinistic husband, who laments, "I just want one thing: an obedient wife, a fat wife." Marriage counseling, personal empowerment programs, inner child therapy , and even gay themes are all open targets for lampooning. The broad acting and clunky dialogue may not always hit the mark, but "Cease Fire" still remains a relevant testimonial to a brewing social upheaval.
More successful is "The Willow Tree." The film, by Majid Majidi (director of 1997's "Children of Heaven"), is an understated portrait of Youssef, a middle-aged scholar who, after a near lifetime of blindness regains his sight after traveling to Paris for an operation. Initial euphoria upon seeing his wife, child , and world dissolves into confusion, anger, and finally a kind of catatonic terror. Much of the movie focuses our attention on snow, wind, and trees, all permeated by a bluish twilight that Youssef prefers to the new visual cacophony. Majidi wraps up "The Willow Tree" with a startling conclusion and the lingering question, "How much have you been seeing? Are your eyes satisfied?"
Youssef's tussle with unexpected sight could be a metaphor for Iran's difficulties adjusting to change. Or, as in "When Fish Fall in Love," a lesson about homecoming and forgiveness could be learned, if only the characters talked more. In Ali Rafiee's film, the oddly uncommunicative Aziz, back in his small coastal village after years in prison, can't or won't explain to old lover Atieh and her daughter Touka the reason for his absence. Instead, unspoken longings torture the protagonists. After 96 minutes, precious little is resolved (though in scenes set in the restaurant the women run, the viewer is treated to a visual smorgasbord of Iranian dishes).
The experience of exile figures prominently in two other films: "Behjat Sadr: Time Suspended" and "A Little Kiss." The former is a profile of Behjat Sadr, the internationally known female artist, now 82, who has lived in Paris since the Iranian Revolution. The director, Mitra Farahani, is herself an ex-pat of a much younger generation -- born in Tehran in 1975 and a Paris resident since 1998. The artist's journey abroad is also the subject of "A Little Kiss," a story of two dying writers, one of whom returns to Iran after years in Switzerland, both intent on making peace with the past.
What becomes apparent, through the eyes of these films, is that Iran is a nation on the move. In "Gradually," a rural railway worker returns to the city to track down his mentally ill wife. In "Scream of the Ants," two newlyweds travel to India on a journey that reconciles faith with skepticism. In Mani Haghighi's "Men at Work," four middle-aged men wearing leather jackets and baseball caps abort a ski weekend to topple, inexplicably, a stone monolith they pass in the middle of the mountains. The pointless, futile task and the immovable edifice seem to stand for male impotence when faced with old deeds -- and misdeeds -- whose strong roots penetrate our lives deeply and don't let go.
This masculine alienation from nature makes sense when we learn Iran has one of the highest urban-growth rates in the world; the greater Tehran metro area now swells with some 11 million people. According to Massoud Bakhshi's ironic and kinetic "Tehran Has No More Pomegranates!," 94 percent of these are poets, and the rest are filmmakers. Much of the humor in his self-described "experimental docufiction comedy" is lost on American audiences. But as the director grapples with the incongruities of Tehran's tumultuous history, one thing becomes obvious: The mockumentary has arrived in Iran.
Sounding a more sober note is "Mainline." Rakhshan Bani-Etemad and Mohsen Abdolvahab take on a rising problem more associated with Western societies than a Muslim one: drug abuse. The female and male co-directors elicit one of the festival's best performances from actress Baran Kosari, who uses her gaunt, twisting body and haunted face to perfection in her excruciating portrayal of Sara, a bride-to-be trying to kick a heroin habit. Almost more heartbreaking is the tormented and exhausted mother, Sima (played by Bita Farahi), who enables Sara's addiction until finally dragging her on a road trip to a rural treatment center.
Another highlight, also part of the female-helmed production trend, is "One Night" by Niki Karimi, a popular Iranian actress making her directorial debut. Young Negar (Hanie Tavassoli), unexpectedly set loose on Tehran's streets for one night, hitchhikes with three drivers who offer her frank and frightening insights into their isolated lives as men. The quiet film, composed of static shots in murky available light, suggests a socially conventional Iran may be giving way to dialogue between the sexes, albeit an awkward and halting one.
And so one hopes a dialogue between nations, too. Presently the US refuses diplomatic ties with Iran. Cultural differences continue to breed mistrust and fear. But the Boston Festival of Films and Music From Iran can bridge the gap. In these films, disagreeable leaders and policies fade, individual lives are carefully framed, and emotion's universal claim on us all comes into sharp focus. As it must.
Ethan Gilsdorf can be reached at ethan@ethangilsdorf.com. 
