LAFF 2012: THE IRAN JOB



Kevin Sheppard in The Iran Job.

More than just a game 

By John Esther

After a formidable college career in basketball, Kevin Sheppard played the game for various teams outside of the United States, but nothing would prepare him for the ordeal after he was hired to play for A.S. Shiraz in the land of Iran.

One of two non-Iranian players on the team (the other, his roommate, is Serbian), Sheppard feels like an outcast. He does not speak Farsi and his coach does not speak English. And the team is a lot worse than anything he has played with in a long time. His girlfriend is back in the States and people do not celebrate the same holidays here. However, the coach, the players and the fans have great expectations for the expansion team to do what no Iranian basketball expansion team in the league has ever done: make it to the playoffs.

As we watch Sheppard transform his team on the court toward success, the documentary captures Sheppard transforming into a real man off the court. Sure, Sheppard is charming and gregarious, but when he first arrived in Iran he was not exactly culturally sensitive to the country. For example, he thinks it clever to repeatedly refer to a Persian man as Saddam – as in Saddam Hussein, the ex-Iraqi dictator, who was Arabic (and there was that 1980s war between Iran and Iraq after Iran was invaded by Iraq -- with US government approval). But set against some of the recent political uprisings, Sheppard sees that these are people, often young people his age, living in a country under a very harsh government, who are oppressed in a country the Secretary of State Hillary Clinton says the U.S. could annihilate if need be.

Bristling with charm, fun and insight, director Till Schauder's The Iran Job works as a rare breed of cinema: a documentary featuring sports with some political currency.

The Iran Job screens at the Los Angeles Film Festival tonight, 7:10, Virgin America Theatre; June 17, 6:50 p.m. Regal Cinemas; June 24, 3:30 p.m., Regal Cinemas.



AFI 2011: THIS IS NOT A FILM

Jafar Panahi in This is Not a Film.

Knight of Eye C-ydonia

By Ed Rampell

When an AFI Film Festival official introduced this remarkable documentaryat the Chinese 1 Theater he lamented that the Iranian filmmakers behind and in front of it could not be present to do so themselves, as their passports had been seized and they were being detained by authorities of the Islamic Republic. At the end of this nonfiction rumination on – as co-director Jafar Panahi puts it -- “filmmakers not making films” – some audience members shouted: “Free Iran.”

Faced with unspecified crimes against the state, Jafar Panahi, whose 1995 The White Balloon won the Camera d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival, has been forbidden from making movies in Iran or to leave the country where he could conceivably do so, for 20 years. So he collaborated with another filmmaker, Mojtaba Mirtahmasb (2008’s Lady of the Rose), to co-direct the pithily named This is Not a Film. The documentary records a day in the life of Panahi in his Tehran apartment, as he speaks on the phone with his attorney about the possibility of going to jail and from being banned from making movies.

Panahi tries to find some wiggle room from that onerous sentence, as it does not explicitly forbidden his reenacting and in particular reading the scripts he’s written of films he’d like to shoot. The defrocked director also screens clips from some of his previously made movies, as Mirtahmasb shoots him. There are a number of long takes and a kind of monitor lizard named Igi steals several scenes as he slithers about Panahi’s posh apartment. Throughout, the director -- who is presumably under some sort of house arrest -- generally retains his composure, only blowing his cool a couple of times when considering the injustice of not being able to practice his avocation for, perhaps, up to two decades. Considering the constraints he is acting under, Panahi seems to hold up well and, like his colleague behind the camera, admirable.

Towards the end an art student moonlighting as a janitor while his sister delivers her baby appears to collect and throw the garbage out. In the course of his conversation with the apartment dweller/noted director, Panahi corrects a comment the university pupil makes and insists that yes indeed, one “can make a film with [only] a cell phone” video camera. Panahi and Mirtahmasb prove that creativity and ingenuity not only trump technology and production budgets, but also political censorship. For my money, this film is far better than anything Michael Bay has ever helmed with his mega-million budgets.

The aptly titled This is Not a Film is also a testament to artists resisting repression, and to humanity refusing to accept persecution. In any case, it turns out that the clever This is Not a Film not only is, but this documentary, apparently entirely shot in a single day, has earned a rarefied spot in cinema history.

To paraphrase Winston Churchill’s commendation of the RAF: Never have so few done so much with so little. Panahi and Mirtahmasb are filmic freedom flyers. Portentously set against the backdrop of New Year’s celebrations in Iran and perhaps anti-government demonstrations in Iran, this documentary made against all odds somehow manages to end on a note of hope. Yes, “free Iran” indeed.

And while we’re at it, lest we Westerners get smug, free Julian Assange, too!

TRIBECA 2011: FLOWERS OF EVIL

Gecko (Rachid Youcef) in Flowers of Evil.

Smells like stream spirit

By Don Simpson

Gecko (Rachid Youcef) is a traceur (a practitioner of parkour) and breakdancer who works as a bellhop at a Parisian hotel. Living alone in an isolated apartment within earshot of the roaring sounds of the major highway it overlooks, Gecko spends much of his spare time on Facebook and YouTube. Recently Gecko has developed an interest in traffic, which in turn draws his attention towards the traffic problems in Iran. 

It is not without coincidence that Gecko meets Anahita (Alice Belaïdi), a young Iranian student whose parents have sent her to Paris to avoid the repressive fallout from the political uprisings in Tehran. Anahita relies solely upon social media -- Twitter, Facebook and YouTube -- to keep up to date with her family, friends and the overall situation in Iran; this quickly evolves into a compulsive and all-consuming desire to constantly check the Internet for any and all updates related to Iran.

To serve as a distraction from Anahita's obsession with Iran, Gecko agrees to be Anahita's Parisian tour guide. They quickly evolve into lovers, but their relationship is not without complications. Anahita finds herself torn between her life of freedom and happiness in Paris and the extreme guilt associated with running away from the atrocities in Iran. Life in Paris is a constant push-pull for Anahita, and Gecko finds himself stuck in the middle of it all. Gecko enjoys Anahita's loving nature but also must suffer the brunt of Anahita's outrage.

Gecko tries to convert Anahita to his personal philosophy -- to live in the here and now. Gecko relishes in his "freedom," which essentially means having no familial or political ties to the world; he wants Anahita to enjoy the same freedoms. Despite Gecko's countless objections, Anahita cannot resist knowing that constant updates are merely a click away on her smart phone.

Writer-director David Dusa builds Flowers of Evil around the plethora of YouTube videos documenting the failed uprising in Iran following the 2009 presidential elections. Dusa cleverly cuts back and forth between Anahita and Gecko in Paris and the YouTube footage of the events in Iran, as if to visualize Anahita's thoughts and concerns. Dusa illustrates how Facebook and YouTube can expands one's horizons, providing limitless information, but can also be distractive and destructive to one's organic relationships.

Named after a compilation of poetry by Charles Baudelaire that deals primarily with themes of decadence and eroticism, Flowers of Evil features multiple instances that Anahita and Gecko recite passages from Baudelaire's book. Along with several historically significant locations, the mid-19th century poetry serves as a grounding for this otherwise lofty postmodern diatribe on the effects that new media and perpetual connectedness has on people's relationships. Baudelaire's words bring Anahita and Gecko closer together as technology tries to form a wedge between them. 

It seems appropriate that I viewed Flowers of Evil via streaming video on my 8” netbook screen. The film works remarkably well in a small visual format, with headphones on. I suspect the poor video quality of the YouTube footage might have annoyed me if I saw it projected on a theatrical screen and I wonder how much of the minutia of the sound design (such as the stereophonic sounds of traffic) would have been lost in a large arena. That said, my extremely personal experience with Flowers of Evil was an extravaganza of sound and vision. Dusa's footage -- especially of Youcef's parkour routines -- is absolutely incredible, as is the soundtrack; all the while the grainy and blurry distortion of the YouTube adds a certain avant garde aesthetic to Flowers of Evil. Sure, I wish Dusa's message was not so politically apathetic (Gecko seems to me to be the more sympathetic character in Flowers of Evil), but he deserves tremendous credit for utilizing visual techniques that perfectly complement the narrative.