If one can imagine a fish being forced not to swim, or a kangaroo being restrained from hopping, or an eagle being prevented from flying, then perhaps one can imagine the plight of Jafar Panahi, an Iranian filmmaker who was placed under house arrest while making his last movie and who now faces a 20-year-ban on filmmaking. This is Not a Film, an opus that is over an hour long and was captured partly on a digital video camera and partly on an iPhone, is his cry for help to the rest of the world.
The documentary film is a sort of slice-of-life treatment of Panahi's situation; he's under house arrest in his posh Tehran apartment, and about to face trial. He's already been imposed a 20-year-ban on filmmaking, obviously for displeasing the state with his work. He talks to his lawyer, and then shares with his friend, who is effectively directing the movie, his idea for a movie that, Panahi realizes with considerable sorrow, is not likely to be made any time soon. After a little over an hour, Panahi's day winds down and the last person he talks to before the film ends is the building's garbage collector.
There's something distinctly clever about the structure of Panahi's "non-film;" in particular I found myself struck by his conversation with his lawyer, in which, in rather precise terms, the casual viewer comes to understand exactly what Panahi's situation is. As a lawyer, I could not quite believe that she would knowingly do anything that would jeopardize her client's case, like, in this case, help him make a movie against a strict government injunction, but then, one must remember that Panahi is a filmmaker to the bone, and that there are all kinds of tricks to the trade that could be at work here. Was his lawyer completely ignorant of her role in his narrative? Or was it even his lawyer at all he was talking to on the phone?
As Panahi shows footage from a 1997 film of his titled The Mirror, which chronicles a very young girl trying to find her way home from school. At the climax of that film she breaks the fourth wall, takes off her uniform/costume and declares that she doesn't want to act in the film anymore. There's a clever little ambiguity in this scene; there seems to be the suggestion that her onscreen rebellion against the filmmaker is part of a larger narrative tapestry.
Part of me, the lawyer watching this film, pitied Panahi's lawyer, who no doubt had her work cut out for her when this film started doing the rounds and surfaced at the Cannes Film Festival. But the person who has enjoyed the freedom to express himself his whole life through watched this opus and saw a man whose art was as important to him as breathing, and I understood him, no matter how foolish his endeavor was, and how potentially destructive to his court case.
This is filmmaking at its most primal. No budget, no merchandising, no considerations of profit or loss, no...PERMISSION. Just an irrepressible urge to express one's own truth. I could feel the vigor in Panahi's spirit as he attempted to outline the movie he wanted to make for his friend holding the camera. I could feel the frustration in his voice and even his body language. This man is every inch a filmmaker, and probably ten times the filmmaker that most of the drones working in Hollywood are.
The fact that this film was shot surreptitiously and then smuggled into France on a flash drive stuffed in a cake is but a small, albeit rather remarkable part of a truly extraordinary story.
Not being too big on independent film (I'm more of a junk food/blockbuster fan myself most of the time) I had not even heard of this man before this film, er--non-film, but I'm pretty sure I won't ever forget him now.
Panahi's lawyer talked about international pressure on Iran's government possibly having an effect on his case; I hope the government is feeling the heat right now.
Score: 5/5
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