Iransara In English

MY BIG FAT PERSIAN CULTURE
MAHYAR ETMINAN: --Why is it that most Iranian movies these days are either too artistic (for a limited audience) or about poverty, depression or despair. Why can't Kiarostami or Panahi or Makhmalbaf make a simple movie that portrays a positive aspect about our culture?
Take for example the movie "The Circle" by Jafar Panahi. What is the purpose of this movie other than revealing life in Iran at its lowest point. We are quite tired of all these directors whose only goal is to collect as many film awards from different international organizations, disregarding the negative impact that their movies may have on non-Iranian viewers both inside and outside of Iran.
Remember the famous Chinese proverb "A picture is a thousand words"? It is extremely difficult to convince a Westerner who sees a movie like "The Circle" that most Iranians do not share the same lifestyles as the characters in the movie--.
There is no doubt that every body likes to be successful and become famous in his/her career. No matter what kind of job he/she does. Even you, as a researcher, think about your prospect and moving ahead in your profession when you are working on some subject matters. It is positive thing and also encourage you to work as well and as much as you can to achieve your goal.
So you should accept that the other people have right to think about themselves too. Kiarostami and the other film directors make movie based of their knowledge and experience of the Iran’s society and most of their movie are about the people and the way they live. They are artists and they can see some sort of things – mostly social problems- much more and better than ordinary people. They express the reality of life by filtrating it through their wisdom and feeling. I am pretty agree with you that the most of these days movies are about poverty, disappointing, depression and should not be, but we should not forget that these issues are the most obvious and touchable problems in our society and artists try to describe them by using their own language and aspect. I am agree with you that we have lots of positive things to show to the other people and we should do it, but don’t forget Iran’s political situation and our big fat countries' rulers!

posted by Davood J Fard @ 12:39 PM