This Is Not A Film (2011): Art Will Out

Jafar Panahi is an acclaimed Persian filmmaker and a leading light of the Iranian New Wave film movement. Prior to the, um, artifact under consideration here, he had made five feature films, starting with The White Balloon (1995). While not overtly political, several of his films were banned in his home country, even as they received kudos and numerous awards at film festivals throughout the world.  (Most are not available to rent or for streaming in the US, as far as I can tell.)

Panahi was arrested in early 2010 for allegedly trying to make a critical documentary about the unrest fthat followed the re-election of President Ahmadinejad the previous year –  a charge which he denied. That December, he was convicted of "assembly and colluding with the intention to commit crimes against the country’s national security and propaganda against the Islamic Republic. ”  He was sentenced to six years in prison and, just as significant, he was banned from making or directing movies, writing screenplays or even giving interviews for twenty years. (On appeal, the prison term was reduced to one year, but the professional ban remained.)

Understanding this backstory heightens the experience of watching This Is Not A Film – a project Panahi undertook (in collaboration with documentarian Mojtaba Mirtahmasb) while living under house arrest and while his conviction was on appeal.   It is a seventy-five minute quasi-documentary about Panahi, shot mostly in his apartment, partly by Mirtahmasb using a professional digital camera, and partially by Panahi himself with an iPhone.  The completed movie was saved on a flash drive and sneaked out of Iran hidden in a cake! It premiered at the Cannes film festival a couple weeks later.

There is no plot, really, just the backstory and Panahi’s attempts to deal with it.  The picture is structured as a day in the life of the artist. We see him cooking a meal, speaking with his lawyer, and calling Mirtahmasb to suggest that he come by later for a conversation on a topic can’t discussed on the phone. Panahi may have been prohibited from practicing his art, but his mind and his artistic temperament is unchanged and undaunted.  When his friend arrives he explains his plan: He is not allowed to make or direct a movie or even write a screenplay but, technically, he is not prohibited from describing the movie he was going to make or reading the existing screenplay on camera. And Mirtahmasb would be the filmmaker, not Panahi, right?  Easier said than done: before Panahi starts reading his screenplay, as he is sitting in the kitchen talking about what he is proposing they do, he says, somewhat imperiously, “Cut!”, whereupon  Mirtahmasb reminds him that he is not the director and he can’t say that: “It’s an offense.”

In his living room, Panahi begins to explain his unmade film – it’s about a teenage girl locked in a house - and starts to read his screenplay in front of the documentary camera. It’s an insightful bit to watch, as he paces off the dimensions of the girl’s room, describes the planned camera setup and the different shots, acts the part of the girl, and allows us a glimpse into the mind of the writer/director. But it doesn’t go so well.  Panahi breaks it off within about ten minutes. “If we can tell a film, why make a film?” he laments in frustration, then gets up and walks sadly away.

It does not end there. Panahi screens and analyzes a few scenes from his earlier films, illustrating his point that a film is not something that the director really controls; it is not just an idea or a story, it’s the location, the lighting, the emotion, the spontaneity of the actors, the unexpected ephemeral moments,  the totality of which can’t possibly be described in words, much less the reading of a screenplay.

Panahi is a mild-mannered, seemingly amiable, yet passionate man, who is also engaging and interesting to watch. Confined to his lavishly furnished upper middle-class Tehran home, he is like a caged animal.  Worse  than that is the proscription on plying his profession. This guy clearly lives and breathes filmmaking. Looking out his window at the city below, he absently, involuntarily frames what he sees with thumb and forefingers.  Describing scenes from his films, both finished and unfinished, excites and stimulates him.   Being banishing from his work is not merely frustrating: it is intolerable, impossible to accept.  How does an artist live if banned from practicing his art?

Panahi seemingly can’t. He is determined to persevere and courageously has carried on, despite the obvious risk to himself and his family.  After the covert export of This Is Not A Film  to Cannes in 2011,  he wrote and directed another movie, Closed Curtain, which was shot on a shoe-string at his vacation home,  smuggled out of Iran and released in 2013; and a third new movie, Taxi, just had its initial screening at the Berlin Film Festival in February 2015.

This Is Not A Film ends provocatively. Late in the evening, Mirtahmasb departs, and as he does, a young man named Hassan appears, collecting the trash. Panahi engages with Hassan, a part-time college student, and then, filming with his iPhone, follows him on his rounds through the building, asking questions, inquiring about his life, his goals.  Even this random young man’s life is interesting, he seems to be saying. When they get out into the courtyard, there’s a bonfire just outside the gate and firecrackers popping off in the distance. It’s “Fireworks Wednesday”, a.k.a. Festival of Fire, an ancient holiday celebrating the end of winter, dating back nearly three millennia (although disapproved by the ayatollahs of modern Iran). People are out and about, celebrating. Spring is coming.  Hassan says, “Mr. Panahi, please don’t come outside. They’ll see you with the camera.”

It’s not all doom and gloom. There are light moments involving the family’s pet iguana (“Iggy”) roaming about the place, and a neighbor girl’s efforts to get Panahi to babysit her yappy little dog. And he himself is able to see the dark humor in his own predicament.

I found This is Not A Film fascinating to watch for its insight into the artistic spirit, and its glimpse at the courage and pluck of this artist in particular, for it’s slice of life picture of contemporary Iran, for Panahi’s cunning ability to make something seemingly out of nothing,  for its concurrent portrayal of despair and of hope under oppression, and for its humanistic heart.   

Available on dvd and streaming on Netflix, and for purchase at Amazon and elsewhere.