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This retrospective took place in Vienna, as part of the Viennale. RIP Ebrahim Golestan (1922-2023) – EK
Session#1: Fires of Forough
Fire-Fight at Ahvaz (1958) / A Fire (1961) / Courtship (1961) / The House Is Black (1962)
Total running time: 88 mins
A look at Golestan's oil documentaries, as well as examining his collaboration with poet and filmmaker Forough Farrokhzad. In 1958, an oil well in southwest Iran caught fire. Abolghassem Rezaie, the son of one of the pioneers of Iranian cinema, made Fire-Fight at Ahwaz about the disaster. When Golestan saw the black-and-white footage, for which he wrote the narration, he saw that the story held even greater potential and decided to produce his own version of the events – this time in colour. Golestan's version, A Fire, proved to be his first major international success. It was edited by Farrokhzad, who combined her poetic sensibilities with Golestan's more symbolic approach. Farrokhzad also acted in Courtship, a short made for Canadian television, in which Golestan demonstrates a marvellous ability with mise-en-scène, especially in his assured use of the camera. In the same year, Farrokhzad made The House Is Black, set in a leper colony in northwest Iran. Celebrated as one of the greatest films ever made, it is a dialogue between the passions of the poet (Farrokhzad) and the voice of reason (Golestan).
Session#2: Jewels of Earth, Part I
Wave, Coral and Rock (1961) / The Crown Jewels of Iran (1965) / [City Symphony] Brick & Mirror Outtake (1964)
Total running time: 60 mins
Wave, Coral and Rock chronicles the laying of oil pipelines in the south of Iran. Even though the directorial credit went to Alan Pendry – a former assistant to Bert Haanstra – he was, in fact, called in at the last minute when Golestan was hospitalised following a terrible car crash, forcing him to send the crew his instructions from his hospital bed. It is ultimately Golestan's editing and commentary that elevate the story, and give the film its poetic style. Though the film looks at its subject from above and below, for the most part it stays close to the soil. It touches on other themes too, such as the “patient process of nature” and the “toil and intellect of man”, before ending with a highly political statement about the people of Iran, who have no share of the oil wealth. Wave, Rock and Coral was followed by the even more controversial The Crown Jewels of Iran. Ostensibly a showcase for the collection of precious jewels kept in the treasury of the Central Bank of Iran, it is in fact a bold attack on the treachery of the Persian kings. This, Golestan's most visually dazzling documentary, is like a work of musical composition; as seen in the simple act of ploughing, which is spread across shots of various sizes and angles, creating an intimate visual symphony.
Session#3: Jewels of Earth, Part II
Persian Story (1952) / Harvest and Seed (1965) / The Hills of Marlik (1963)
Total running time: 65 mins
Harvest and Seed, never before shown outside Iran, is a study in the conditions of a poverty-stricken Iranian village after the land reforms of the early 1960s. Rather than leading to a distribution of wealth, the financial and political power has merely changed hands from one corrupt element to another. Copies of the film were immediately confiscated. A different view on the question of land use is offered in The Hills of Marlik, which focuses on a 3,000-year-old site in the north of Iran, simultaneously excavated by archaeologists and fertilized by farmers. Another example of Golestan’s interest in the classical elements, here the past touches the present and there is a clear continuity among the forms of human life detected by the camera, as it breathes new life into dead objects. Golestan pays scrupulous attention to sound too; quite often the music – an excellent contribution by Morteza Hannaneh, one of the most innovative Iranian composers of his era – goes silent, in order to amplify the sound of brushes caressing a broken piece of pottery.
Session#4: Brick and Mirror
Brick and Mirror (1964)
Total running time: 130 mins
Iranian cinema’s first true modern masterpiece is a Dostoyevskian exploration of fear and responsibility, the tale of a Tehran cab driver’s search for the mother of an abandoned baby. Production began in the spring of 1963 with a small crew of five, and without a finished script. The only written part – the driver and the woman in the ruins – became the basis for the first shoot. This was followed by improvised scenes in the vegetable market of Tehran. When the camera lens broke during the shooting of a scene in the Palace of Justice, the production was delayed. On June 5, 1963, while the crew awaited the shipment of a new lens from France, a protest arose against the arrest of Ayatollah Khomeini. This added to the sense of lurking unrest depicted in the film. With its title alluding to a poem by Attar (‘What the old can see in a mudbrick/youth can see in a mirror.’) the film moves between realism and expressionism. It features a very rare use of direct sound in Iranian cinema (the detail emphasised by the lack of any score), which complements the claustrophobic use of widescreen. An unforgettable and bleak image of a society of corrupted morals and widespread alienation, the restored version returns to the director’s original vision, featuring scenes never seen before.
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