Offside
You might glimpse a bit of the on-field action when director Jafar Panahi stages a scene high atop a soccer stadium in Tehran. And maybe, if you look real close, you'll make out some of the match being shown on a small TV, which sits at the back of a crowded outdoor cafe that cinematographer Mahmood Kalari shoots from inside a minibus.
But for the most part in "Offside," you'll need to visualize your way to fever pitch just as most Persian women do: without benefit of seeing the game live and up close. Females are barred from attending men's sporting events in Iran.
There's not much more you need to know about this modest drama co-written by Panahi (whose filmmaking credits include "Crimson Gold" and "The Circle") and Shadmehr Rastin. Winner of a Silver Berlin Bear award, it's another wordy Middle Eastern art flick that many Americans, particularly those who think sports movies are actually about sports, will file under "nothing happens."
In reality, of course, everything happens. It just doesn't happen in flashy ways that feed the highlights reel. That's what makes the film so powerful.
When we meet her, the delicately built, soccer-worship ing teenager played by Sima Mobarak Shahi is already disguised as a boy, on her way to fooling nobody as she tries to slip into the audience of an all-important World Cup qualifier between Iran and Bahrain. The rowdy male fans she meets along the way are mainly sympathetic and concerned; they're impressed by the seasoned crashers infiltrating every game, but they remind this first-timer that she'll be arrested if she's found out. And the stadium is no place for a lady anyway, what with all the cursing.
Yet the poser hooligan is undeterred. She manages to buy a ticket and bolt past the gate, only to be corralled by a soldier and marched to a holding area just outside an upper-deck entrance. It's here, within earshot of cheers and play-by-play, that she'll spend almost the entire remainder of the movie. Settle in with her and you might learn something about feminism, salvation, and the offensive merits of a 4-4-2 formation, among other things.
"Offside" is as funny as it is sharp. The irreverent, tough-talking female detainees often get the better of a team of reluctant jailers (especially comical during a clever restroom break), but their relationship never feels truly adversarial. Not one of these real-sounding people (Panahi prefers using untrained actors) believes in the arbitrary system of authority that has tossed them together. They'd all rather be inside the stadium walls, cheering their purest symbol of national pride.
Iran only needs a tie in this game to make it into the World Cup. In other words, they can win just by being regarded as equal to their opponents.
Other metaphors may be harder to see, but sometimes you see better when you're on the outside.
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