Iranian Monitor
08 May 2006, 02:15 AM
One of the best ways to learn about the 'real Iran' -- the country and the society, in all its facets, contradictions and complications -- is to follow Iranian cinema. Unfortunately, however, the Iranian films that use to get attention in the West were often the ones that showed a side of Iran that was very much uncharacteristic. Films that often appealed to the nostalgic side of all of us, yearning for a time when things were more simple. The more typical genre of Iranian movies is, however, getting out and gaining more attention. I hope they too will earn the same attention as some earlier ones that might have had merit from an artistic perspective, but were not exactly very educational about Iran itself.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/05/06/AR2006050600598.html
Iranian films bring comedy, music to NY festival
NEW YORK (Reuters) - A witty Iranian film about four men who try to topple a big rock has audiences wondering about political allegory and hidden messages at a time of growing tension between Washington and the Islamic Republic of Iran.
But the director of "Men at Work," Tehran-based Mani Haghighi, says sometimes a story is just a story, so don't hold him responsible for whatever message you might read into it.
The film, which was showing at the Tribeca Film Festival this week, is a comedy about four middle-class, middle-aged men on a ski trip who happen across a pillar of rock by the side of the road above a lake. They decide to push it over, but that turns out to be more difficult than they think.
"When I was in Berlin, the radical political opposition there came up to me and said, 'Really good work, that was the Islamic republic and those guys finally toppled it,"' Haghighi told the audience after a New York screening this week.
"Back in Iran, the people from the Ministry of Islamic Guidance came to me and said, 'Really good work, the will of God vs. the weakness of man,"' he said, declining to answer questions about what the message of the film was for him.
Haghighi said it was a cultural characteristic of Iranians to speak in a roundabout fashion, with poetic language that often has layers of meaning.
...
Even as a straight story, the film shows a side of Iranian life that is very different from the stereotypical images of Iran often seen in Western media of women in headscarves, poor children or clerics calling for the destruction of America.
Peter Scarlet, executive director of the festival, said he chose several films that show unexpected sides of life in Iran to help Americans understand more about a country that President George W. Bush has dubbed part of an "axis of evil."
"I felt it was important even before the headlines got bigger and blacker and more ominous," Scarlet told Reuters. "Clearly this is a place that Americans or Westerners in general don't know enough about."
...
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/05/06/AR2006050600598.html
Iranian films bring comedy, music to NY festival
NEW YORK (Reuters) - A witty Iranian film about four men who try to topple a big rock has audiences wondering about political allegory and hidden messages at a time of growing tension between Washington and the Islamic Republic of Iran.
But the director of "Men at Work," Tehran-based Mani Haghighi, says sometimes a story is just a story, so don't hold him responsible for whatever message you might read into it.
The film, which was showing at the Tribeca Film Festival this week, is a comedy about four middle-class, middle-aged men on a ski trip who happen across a pillar of rock by the side of the road above a lake. They decide to push it over, but that turns out to be more difficult than they think.
"When I was in Berlin, the radical political opposition there came up to me and said, 'Really good work, that was the Islamic republic and those guys finally toppled it,"' Haghighi told the audience after a New York screening this week.
"Back in Iran, the people from the Ministry of Islamic Guidance came to me and said, 'Really good work, the will of God vs. the weakness of man,"' he said, declining to answer questions about what the message of the film was for him.
Haghighi said it was a cultural characteristic of Iranians to speak in a roundabout fashion, with poetic language that often has layers of meaning.
...
Even as a straight story, the film shows a side of Iranian life that is very different from the stereotypical images of Iran often seen in Western media of women in headscarves, poor children or clerics calling for the destruction of America.
Peter Scarlet, executive director of the festival, said he chose several films that show unexpected sides of life in Iran to help Americans understand more about a country that President George W. Bush has dubbed part of an "axis of evil."
"I felt it was important even before the headlines got bigger and blacker and more ominous," Scarlet told Reuters. "Clearly this is a place that Americans or Westerners in general don't know enough about."
...