In 2011, when the Iranian Islamic regime banned him from making films and he was placed under house arrest after serving a prison sentence, Jafar Panahi reappeared with this is not a movie. Shot at home, using a camcorder and an iPhone, this brilliant snub to the regime launched a series of five illegally produced feature films, among the best of his long career.
Since last July, Panahi has again been imprisoned for criticizing his government, along with fellow filmmakers Mohammad Rasoulof and Mostafa Aleahmad. The production of his latest film, No bears, ended just a few months before his arrest. Perhaps his most political work to date, it resonates today as a cry from the heart, all the more poignant as Iran is experiencing an unprecedented wave of protests.
Crowned with a special jury prize at the last Venice Film Festival – where Panahi, absent, was given a long ovation -, No bears rightly criticizes the fact that the filmmaker was forbidden to leave his country for many years, among other things. In a metatextual approach of its own, Panahi stages himself in the role of an alter ego who, unable to leave Iran, tries to direct his film crew to Turkey from an Iranian village near the Turkish border.
Two parallel stories
No bears causes surprise from one scene to another. The film opens with a dispute between a couple where one first has the impression of attending a classic fiction film, very different from the more realistic and stripped down, almost documentary style of the director. Suddenly, we realize that we were rather watching the film that Panahi’s alter ego is shooting, while he watches the scene from his computer.
The film then oscillates between the story of the fictional couple and that of Panahi himself, blurring the lines between documentary and fiction on several occasions.
The filmmaker also encounters many obstacles while trying to lead his team from a distance. He also gets bogged down in a conflict with the inhabitants of his adopted village. The villagers demand that Panahi, who often walks around with his camera, gives them back a photo he allegedly took of a young couple. This couple is considered illegitimate by the villagers since the girl has been promised to another man since birth. What’s more, the filmmaker claims to have never taken the photo.
Panahi seems very sympathetic in this complex political drama, since he denounces his condition and that of his fellow citizens with great humility, in a kind of cynical, almost comical resignation. He also manages to eloquently criticize the sometimes unhealthy mores of the villagers, while restrained, without ever having to lecture them explicitly.
No bears thus paints a lucid and sensitive portrait of rural Iran, increasingly torn between the weight of its traditions and the desire for emancipation of its inhabitants. After nine feature films, the filmmaker is at the top of his game – one more reason to regret the injustice he has suffered.