A Simple Event: the Birth of Iranian New Wave Cinema

A Simple Event

A Simple Event: the Birth of Iranian New Wave Cinema

Il Cinema Ritrovato, Bologna, Italy

June 27-July 4, 2015

Curated by Ehsan Khoshbakht, in collaboration with the Iranian National Film Archive

At the end of the Iranian Revolution of 1979 the country found itself, somewhat unexpectedly, marginalized. The upheaval also forced into obscurity and inaccessibility many Iranian films from the 1960s and 1970s, whose contemporary politics were condemned by the revolution.

Now, thanks to certain shifts in the cultural climate, the doors of The National Film Archive of Iran are open. We have grabbed this opportunity to review four key films made between 1965 and 1973 – a period later dubbed the Iranian New Wave. It is a happy coincidence that the oldest film of the bunch, Night of the Hunchback, was made by one of the founders of the National Film Archive, Farrokh Ghaffari.

Representing some of the key filmmakers of the New Wave – Kamran Shirdel (The Night It Rained), Darius Mehrjui (The Cow) and Sohrab Shahid Saless (A Simple Event) – this selection not only reveals some of the early signposts of an Iranian cinematic revolution, it also hints at those social and political changes that were to reshape the country a decade later.

Films:

• Shab-e Ghuzi (Night of the Hunchback), Farrokh Ghaffari, 1965. [New print]
• Oon shab ke baroon oomad ya hemase-ye roosta zade-ye gorgani (The Night It Rained or the Epic of the Gorgan Village Boy), Kamran Shirdel, 1967. [2K restoration]
• Gaav (The Cow), Dariush Mehrjui, 1969. [2K restoration]
• Yek ettefagh-e sadeh (A Simple Event), Sohrab Shahid Saless, 1973. [New print]

Notebook's Fantasy Double Feature of 2013

NEW: My Name Is Negahdar Jamali and I Make Westerns (Kamran Heidari, Iran)
OLD: Ride Lonesome (Budd Boetticher, 1959)

WHY: In recent years, some of the best films coming out of the most unlikely parts of Iran (this one from Shiraz, the city of great grapes and poets) have rethought cinematic genres in different ways, and, occasionally, have managed to bring to the centre the marginalized, unsung heroes of Cinephilia in the country. It is in such context that My Name Is Negahdar Jamali and I Make Westerns shines; it hilariously recreates many familiar western settings while focusing on the life of a simple, poor worker/farmer who loves making westerns. Heidari’s film shows Negahdar trying to make a new western with local friends and reveals how in the process he loses his house and family and eventually, like a traditional cowboy, is left on his own to vanish into a horizon.  The film, in its dry, hopeless feeling and its landscape of decadence, is much closer to Budd Boetticher than John Ford (whose legendary introductory line has inspired the title of this film). Negahdar is more or less a synthesis of both Boetticher and Randolph Scott. His minimalism and no-budget, semi- experimental films, like a crossover between the poorest of B westerns and Jack Smith, stands out as ultra primitive drafts of Boetticher’s westerns, and, on the other hand, his individualism puts him is the same category as Randolph Scott’s laconic avengers. In Negahdar’s guileless, unsophisticated westerns (that we see within this film), as much as this bittersweet portrait of the man at work, a burning passion for cinema, unprecedented to anything else I’ve seen this year, keeps stunning me.

Notebook's Fantasy Double Feature of 2014

NEW: The Wolf of Wall Street (Martin Scorsese, USA)
OLD: Twentieth Century (Howard Hawks, 1934)

Aside from featuring two of the most obsessive characters in film history whose quest for keeping the show going on gives a new dimension to American Madness, they’re both narrated in the way bodies move in closed spaces, where work space continuously metamorphoses into stage and performance space. One can effortlessly be charmed in their sheer lunacy, their staccato choreography of bodies, and in the cocaine/booze eyes and stiff jaws of their leading stars. If it takes 4 ½ hours to endure this unapologetic double bill, probably another 4 ½ days is needed to digest it, recuperate from its orgy of greed, and come to realize that it was some horrible thing to see.

From Sketch to the Screen: Patrizia von Brandenstein

http://cinearchitecture.tumblr.com/post/117760104187/from-sketch-to-the-scree-silkwood-mike-nichols

The 58th BFI London Film Festival

پنجاه و هشتمين فستيوال فيلم لندن - نقدها

• مقدمه و معرفي فيلم‌هايي با مضمون جنگ
• نقد «متامورفوسيس» (و «افسانه‌هاي هوفمان»)
• نقد «هاكني»
• نقد «كمپ ايكس ري»
• نقد فيلم‌هاي «خاوخا»، «غار»، «سرزمين مردگان»، «زغال سياه، يخ نازك»
• بررسي فيلم‌هايي با شخصيت‌هاي محوري زن يا ساخته شده توسط كارگردانان زن
• نقد «ديپلم»، «ملكه و كشور» و «خودساخته»
• «دوك بورگندي»، «مردي كه خيلي محبوب بود»، «زندگي در وحش»
• «گوش كن فيليپ»، «ال نينيو«، «اجتناب»
• ده فيلم برگزيدۀ فستيوال
• معرفي فيلم‌هاي ايراني و فيلمسازان ايراني فستيوال

The Best of London Film Festival

ده فيلم برگزيدۀ فستيوال فيلم لندن

احسان خوش‌بخت

10

ادامه بده [Keep on Keepin' on] (آلن هيكس، آمريكا): اين فيلمِ مملو از لحظات ناب دربارۀ زندگي نوازندۀ ترومپت و مدرس موسيقي، كلارك تِري، اساساً فيلمي است دربارۀ رابطه مريد و مرادي و آن آيين فراموش شدۀ دنياي استاد/شاگردي در موسيقي جاز. اين استادِ سابق كوئينسي جونز و كسي كه زير پر و بال مايلز ديويس را گرفت نه تنها هنوز زنده است، بلكه در نود و يك سالگي، خوابيده روي تخت، اكسيژن به بيني و در حالي كه بينايي‌اش را از دست داده به تدريس موسيقي جاز ادامه مي‌دهد. [كلارك تري متأسفانه به تازگي درگذشت] به موازات زندگينامۀ تري – از خلال مصاحبه‌ها و تصاوير آرشيوي - فيلم با دنبال كردن داستان رابطه او با يك نوازندۀ جوان نابينا، وزن ملودراتيك بيش‌تري پيدا مي‌كند. كلارك تري قصه‌گويي است بزرگ كه هر جمله‌اش به يك فحش چارواداري ختم مي‌شود و فيلم درسي است در استقامت، عشق به زندگي و اهميت آموزش در موسيقي. با آن كه مستندي كلاسيك است و بيش از حد آمريكايي است اما به خاطر غناي هر لحظه‌اي كه مي‌توان با كلارك تري روي پرده گذراند ديدن آن را به دوست و دشمن توصيه مي‌كنم.