Pars Arts

Persepolis, the Movie: A Review

Persepolis may be the most highly anticipated film in the Iranian community since 300 (and we all know how well that went). The critically acclaimed animated feature, based on the autobiographical comics by Marjane Satrapi, will probably not incite protest when it opens in Los Angeles and New York on Christmas Day this year, though.

I saw the film a couple of weeks ago and I liked it very much. Satrapi’s pretty much a genius and her movie is a beautiful work of art: hand-drawn, with excellent voice work by a very talented cast. She coached each actor separately, acting out all the other parts, and that sort of attention is evident in the performances.

But to hardcore devotees of the book (and I count myself as one), I have to warn you not to expect the best movie of your life. That’s the exact thought I had leaving the theater: “This was really good, but not, as I expected, the movie of my life.” Then I realized, well, that’s probably because it’s the movie of Marjane Satrapi’s life. Duh.

For you this may not be the case, but the same sort of connection I felt reading the books was not replicated for me in watching the film. There are probably a few reasons for this. First, I watched it in a theater full of strangers; obviously reading is solitary, more intimate. Second, there’s the whole classic book-to-movie thing: When you really love a book, it’s always hard for the movie to measure up. I nearly had the Persepolis books memorized, and the movie left out some things I loved and emphasized others I hadn’t noticed as much. It isn’t as funny as the books are, and a lot scarier and more graphic. Ultimately, books turned into movies are almost never as good as the movie you have playing in your head when you read… it’s dorky and obvious but true, and I think it happened for me with this movie. Third, music is a big part of any film, and Persepolis missed the mark: the compositions had an Eastern vagueness about them, and besides an off-key rendition of “Eye of the Tiger,” there wasn’t any other music from the era – the ’70s and ’80s – that I can remember (there’s an awesome Gole Yakh cover on the soundtrack album, though). And finally, on the way out of the theater, I overheard a girl behind me saying, “You guys, why didn’t they just leave Eye-ran when the revolution happened?” That put kind of a damper on the whole thing, so be prepared to correct misperceptions and fill in the inevitable history gaps.

Still, at the end of the day, you should go see Persepolis and you can safely expect it to be spectacular and wonderful. If you’re in San Francisco, you can see it on December 12 and see Marjane Satrapi and co-director Vincent Paronnaud (it’s a benefit for the San Francisco Film Society).

Javad Party, Los Angeles

Tonight, if you’re in LA, you should really check out the Javad Party going on tonight in the Valley. Javads are as close as Iranians get to Britain’s chavs, so that means ridiculous outfits, strange and funny jargon, and generally awesome antics.

Tonight’s party requires a Javad costume. See the party’s flyer for more info.

The First Iranian Literary Arts Festival and ICARUS/RISE

Niloufar Talebi and The Translation Project are the forces behind a really cool event going on in San Francisco this week: the inaugural Iranian Literary Arts Festival, which features film screenings and the world premiere of ICARUS/RISE, a multimedia play inspired by contemporary Iranian poetry. Entry to the festival comes with buying a ticket to the play (tix are $50 if you’re not a student – a little steep but the play looks amazing). Beyond Persia is also sponsoring the event; see their page on it for the best info and links to buy tickets.

Interviews with Young Iranians: Azad, Life Goes on in Tehran Photo Blogger

The photo blog Life Goes on in Tehran highlights ordinary Tehran life in an effort to dispel Western myths and poorly slanted media coverage about Iran. It has a very insider quality that makes you feel like you’re on your own Tehran visit. The man behind the site, 28-year-old Azad (last name withheld for reasons outlined below), documents his life there on a camera phone and updates the site with new pictures and captions each month. We sent him some questions by email, and here’s what he had to say.

Pars Arts: You are anonymous on your photo blog; without revealing your name/identity, can you tell us more about who you are and where you grew up? Can you also talk about why you’ve decided to be anonymous?
Azad: I was born and raised in Tehran and then moved to the Los Angeles area when I was 14. Following the awkward assimilation period of high school, I attended USC where I got my BA in Cinema-Television in 2001. After graduation I paid my bills doing web design, while affording myself the opportunity to make short films and travel for months at a time.

There are multiple reasons for wanting to stay anonymous. For one, I don’t want the website to become about me. I like it as it is; Tehran from the point of view of a former Los Angeles resident, regardless of who that resident is. Plus, I often point my camera at unsuspecting friends and family members at private gatherings and parties. In order to hide their identities, I feel like I should first hide mine. A more dramatic reason would be staying away from either Evin prison in Tehran or a secret CIA prison somewhere in Eastern Europe! But really, if someone tried hard enough, they could find out who is behind the photo blog. So what it comes down to is me trying to stay out of Tehran’s spotlight.

PA: Why did you move (back?) to Iran?
Azad: Ironically, I moved (back) to Tehran to jump-start my film career. Most people go to Los Angeles to do this; I left. I think the Hollywood film scene is for when you’ve already made it. You don’t fare well in Hollywood as a struggling filmmaker. In order to meet my personal goal of making my first feature-length film before I’m 30, I weighed my options and felt that I would be more likely to do so if I were to move to Tehran. Plus, if I get started here, I will always have a base to come back to.

PA: What’s been the biggest surprise about living in Tehran for you? What’s been the most difficult part of adjusting to life in Iran? What do you miss most about your LA life?
Azad: I tested the waters with a couple of short-term stays before finally making the big move. So I had an idea about what life in Tehran might have in store for me and I can’t say there were any surprises. If anything, the fact that it’s similar to living in LA, for the most part, is a surprise in and of itself. It’s more about moving from one big city to another. I have, however, narrowed down the differences to three main things, the absence of which makes life in Tehran a tad more difficult: respect, trust and freedom to choose. Most everything that might annoy someone who has lived abroad fits in one or all of the above categories.

This is not to say that Iranians are disrespectful or untrustworthy. On the contrary, in personal interactions and relationships with people you know they’re perhaps more respectful, kind and trustworthy [than people in Los Angeles]. But when it comes to dealing with “them,” things get shady. And the place where this is most apparent is the relationship the government has with its people. All three are missing in that particular marriage. Needless to say, the three things I miss most about LA are: respect, trust and freedom to choose. I won’t get into specifics, but if I have done my job right, you’ll see examples of this on my site.

PA: I’ve frequently wondered whether being Iranian-American (or any other sort of Iranian hyphenate) is a barrier or instead lends a certain cachet to those that grew up abroad and then move back to Iran for work/to live. Any first-hand observations/thoughts on this? Is there a sizable community of people who have moved back to Iran?
Azad: It’s definitely not a barrier. For some reason, people here take Iranians coming from the U.S. very seriously. Perhaps too seriously. This is surprising considering the type of junk-TV a handful of Iranians in Los Angeles beam to their living rooms. If my only image of Iranian-Americans were those of the LA pop stars and TV anchors as seen on satellite TV, I would question anyone who associated with anything American. But fortunately most everyone — at least among the middle-class Iranians — has a relative in the U.S. Because of these relatives, lines of communication are always open and the general public is aware of what life in the US can be like. So there’s this thought process of “Oh you lived in the US? Lucky you! Want to run my company? You single?!”

I am sure a medical degree from Harvard deserves the type of respect here as it does anywhere else in the world, but as for my own degree, well, my film degree means nothing to me or to anyone in Hollywood. But here, they introduce me as “So and so, who studied film in the US.” Before I have a chance to discredit my degree, they already take me for some genius that I am not. This I find amusing. Some people use this to their advantage. I’ve run into folks who have taken courses at Santa Monica City College who consider themselves “U.S. educated,” and you’ll be surprised to see how it opens doors for them. This is not to bash on SMC or any other community college, for that matter, but it perfectly demonstrates the type of weight being Iranian-hyphen-anything carries.

I have also decided to keep my U.S. citizenship a secret. What is shadier than being taken more seriously at what you do because of some U.S. education is finding yourself in a relationship with someone who likes you for your passport! Luckily I haven’t experienced this, but I am told to be cautious. It would be really sad to have that be a qualification (but unfortunately some fellow Iranian-Americans do).

PA: Several of your images capture and comment on Iranian media consumption (satellite dishes, newspapers, film, art). Are the art, culture, and media produced in Iran – and the various means of consumption that defy censorship – vastly different from what you thought they would be?
Azad: This is too broad a topic to try and tackle with a general statement on what art/culture/media Iranians produce and consume. I personally never had any expectations or pre-conceived notions of what this may be like in Iran. But because there are many more obstacles and bans on creation and consumption in Iran, people tend to not take for granted what is readily available in the U.S. For example, in the US you can watch any movie your heart desires, have access to any website or go to any play, but you don’t necessarily take advantage of this. Because you take your freedom for granted. When you come to Iran, you start to seek that which the government wants to keep from you. Suddenly watching a banned movie or going to a blocked website becomes a more valuable (and pleasurable) experience. Then in the process you feel more “cultured.”

PA: A lot of your photos appear to be shot in northern Tehran – a more affluent part of the city. Much of the lifestyle press coverage coming from Tehran seems to be focused on this area also (or it’s very much the opposite, looking at abject poverty), but I think you do a good job pointing out the economic context of your photos in your short captions, which is where a lot of mainstream reportage about Iran fails. I assume you shoot mostly things happening around you, but do you have plans to venture further south in the city and capture a different socioeconomic scene also?
Azad: I am not a reporter and therefore I don’t go out of my way to report on life in Tehran (unfortunately many mainstream Western reporters do the same!). My main goal is show that life in general, my life in particular, goes on in Tehran. So I point the camera at my immediate surroundings, which happens to be that of the more affluent middle-class northern Tehran. There’s no shame in this. Because it is exactly this socioeconomic scene that is under-represented — by both the Iranian media as well as the Western press coverage. One could take away from this the very fact that Tehran is so large a city that you could live your whole life in one neighborhood and never cross paths with other less or more fortunate souls in other neighborhoods. Same is true with any large cities. Many Iranians living in Beverly Hills have never set foot in Compton or South Central LA, even though they’re only a few miles apart. That said, I do have a few photos from South Tehran. One in particular is of an elderly man near Khorasan Square in the south who had lived his whole life there and had never seen Pasdaran or other neighborhoods in the north.

PA: What kind of feedback have you gotten from people that follow LGOIT?
Azad: So far I’ve only received positive feedback. Many Iranians abroad write and tell me that the site brought tears to their eyes. They thank me for finally portraying life in Tehran in such a way that they can proudly share with their non-Iranian friends. I can relate to their sentiments, because I think when you live outside of Iran, the situation is such that it becomes really difficult for you to prove to your non-Iranian friends and family that Iran isn’t all that bad, that there’s more good than evil, more positive than negative, and most importantly that we are not backwards, but similar to them, that we share many of the same values and ideals.

I also get many emails from Americans and Europeans who thank me for showing a side of Iran they had no idea existed. One American visitor even joked about me receiving a Noble Peace prize for my efforts. Because he thought it would be much tougher for the Bush White House to start a war with Iran if the word on my site were to get out and more tax-paying Americans were to see it. And the word is getting out. As of this interview I have had thousands of unique visitors from 97 countries in over 1700 cities. I for one find all this very inspiring and with each new visitor I get more motivated to continue what I’m doing. What started out as a simple site to assure my friends back home that I’m safe in Tehran has gotten a life of its own. Hopefully I will one day look back at the archives of Life Goes On In Tehran and feel that I did my small part in changing world public opinions about Iran and stopping a catastrophic war.

(Photos courtesy of Life Goes on in Tehran)

MFA Boston: Iranian Film Festival

The Museum of Fine Arts in Boston is hosting an Iranian film festival. Here are the deets:

The Fourteenth Annual Boston Festival of Films from Iran (click for the schedule)
Nov 9-24, 2007

Lots of great films on the schedule: The photo above is from 10 + 4, a documentary by actress/painter/filmmaker Mania Akbari, about her battle with breast cancer (she was the main character in Abbas Kiarostami’s excellent film Ten). I’m also curious about Unfinished Stories, which features three stories about women in the absence of men.

CinemaEast 2007

The 2007 CinemaEast film festival, which features quite a few contemporary Iranian movies, is happening right now in New York City at my favorite theater, the IFC Center. The festival ends November 15, so catch what you can this week.

I highly recommend “Tehran Has No More Pomegranates” (Tehran Anar Nadarad), by Massoud Bakhshi; it’s a really sophisticated, satirical faux documentary (you have to see it to get it) and tonight’s showing features a Q&A with him. See the full schedule and list of films for more. (And while you’re at the IFC, be sure to visit the basement bathrooms… they’re easily the most beautiful public restrooms in the entire city.)

Interviews with Young Iranians: Maryam Kashani, Filmmaker

Maryam Kashani is an Iranian-Japanese-American filmmaker whose first documentary feature, Best in the West was released in 2006 and has been screening at festivals. The film tells the story of Kashani’s father and his Iranian friends who all ended up in San Francisco during the 1960s and 1970s, tying their narrative to the turbulent time (civil rights movement, oil crisis, etc.) in which they lived. Not surprisingly, it’s marked by a palpable warmth for its subjects. But Kashani is a careful storyteller who avoids sentimentalism, making Best in the West a truly exceptional family documentary. We interviewed her via email, and here’s what she had to say:

Tell us about Best in the West. What’s it about and where did the idea for the movie come from?
The film began as an oral history about how my family arrived in the United States, and more specifically in San Francisco. As I began doing interviews, I realized that our family story was really part of a larger story of an entire community. I was fascinated by the choices these men made and the risks they took amidst a great deal of chance and luck, as well. In any case, I wanted to tell an “American” story that is rarely told, in a way that would hopefully elucidate the reasons why it was a story relevant to all Americans. I also thought that it was a rare opporunity for a young woman to document the lives of an older group of men, and to talk about this particular type of masculinity from a feminine/feminist perspective.

How did you come to weave together the history and geopolitics of oil in Iran with the narratives of your father and his group of friends?
One of the biggest surprises for me in doing my interviews was realizing that the guys were in the Bay Area during the Vietnam War and the Free Speech movement, as well as the whole hippie counterculture and ethnic studies and black power movements. Being politically active myself, I was disappointed that they were not more politically engaged, although I understood that their situation was quite different [from mine]. I wanted to incorporate this into the film without necessarily being overtly critical of their choices and actions. While I could have told their story without including the geopolitics of oil, it seemed integral to the story. Although they were the risk takers and choice makers, they were also in a particular place at a particular time. There was a lot of luck and chance involved, or, as my father would say, fate. I also felt that it was necessary to talk about oil because that ties everyone to the story. We all have something invested in American dependency on oil, and it was important for me to bring that into the story. Perhaps it makes Iran more of a real place to tie the people to the geopolitics.

Are there particular films or filmmakers that served as inspiration for Best in the West?
I think my biggest influence was probably Chris Marker’s Sans Soleil. I must have watched it 20 times. My film doesn’t really look like his, but his ability to tie different locations and histories together was a huge inspiration. James Benning was also an influence. He was a teacher of mine at CalArts and he does a lot of portraits of landscapes on film.

The music in this film adds a lot in evoking 1960s and 1970s San Francisco. What was the process for selecting Best in the West’s soundtrack? Did the subjects of the film weigh in there, considering that some of them owned a popular night club during that time?
I am a big music collector and sometime DJ. The soundtracks are always equally as important as the picture for me, and I construct them at the same time. I had asked the men about music that they had listened to and about music that was played at the night club, and their suggestions are definitely present in the film, especially in the use of Latin funk and rock. Music is so emblematic of that time, so it was a really fun part of the filmmaking, and in a way, it was my way of inserting myself into that time.

The men in this film were surprisingly forthcoming about their private lives. Was it difficult to convince them to participate and to speak so openly? Was there anything you wanted them to speak more about that didn’t come through?
Sometimes I was really surprised about how open they were, especially my uncle Nasser. I think in some ways they were really eager to talk about that time because they rarely get to, and it was a really
wonderful, exciting time for them. Most of what they had to say was pretty positive, both about what they went through and about each other. I realize that it was all not so pleasant at the time, nor is it now, but I felt like I had to respect how they wanted to be represented. This wasn’t an exposé, and I didn’t want to jeopardize their relationships.

What were the reactions of the men in the film when they saw it? What about the reaction of the greater Iranian community?
The men all really enjoy the film. It’s a little more difficult for my family since the film does deal with the deaths of my grandmother and one of my uncles. But they are pretty nonchalant about it at the same time. I think they really consider it more of a school project then a real film. In terms of the larger Iranian community, it has done really well. People seem to really enjoy the film. This is the first film that deals with this particular generation of Iranian immigrants, so I think it was really affirming for many people. Many people have come up to me after screenings to tell me how similar their experiences were, in terms of school and jobs and their own group of friends. And I think the film has been really important for the second generation as well. Hopefully people go home and talk about it and share.

In a video interview with Pars Times, you mentioned you’re working on a portrait of Los Angeles and would also like to create a film about religion and immigration. Can you talk more about both those projects? Will they feature Iranians as well?
The Los Angeles film is definitely on hold, especially since I am now living in Texas. I am thinking about two films. One that actually takes place in Iran and another one about Islam in America. They are both still in the idea phase though. I definitely need to make something small soon. Maybe a music video…

(Photo courtesy of Maryam Kashani)

Revisiting the Hostage Crisis: Firoozeh Dumas on NPR

Check out Firoozeh Dumas’ NPR story about the Iranian hostage crisis and meeting a former hostage many years later. Dumas met Kathryn Koob, one of two women held for over a year shortly after the Iranian revolution.

(Thanks to Sam for the link!)