Jafar Panahi: To be or not to be in Berlin

The Berlinale has steadfastly taken up the cause of this Iranian filmmaker banned by the clerical regime of his country from making film for twenty years.  In 2011 Cannes showed his video diary This Is Not a Film, and yesterday the competition screened his remarkable piece of reflexive filmmaking Closed Curtain.  Panahi’s  2006 Offside, a clever comment of the status of women in Iran, shot in the guise of a documentary, had started his troubles; one cannot help but wonder what this intriguing piece –a plea of sorts to the Iranian authorities – will do to him and his collaborators in the project.

The first part of Closed Curtain works as not very subtle metaphor for his confinement – it begins with an extremely long take of a metallic curtain, seen from inside of a house by the sea.  It concerns a writer (Kamboziya Partovi, credited also as co-director), hiding his dog from extermination while receiving the unexpected visit of two fleeing siblings from a certain but mysterious danger.  Before the allegory becomes too trite, there is an unexpected narrative twist: Panahi enters the story as himself, directing a three-person crew behind the camera.  He takes over the role of the writer, while retracing his same steps and engaging in the ordinariness of daily life.  What came into sharp focus then was the ambitious nature of Closed Curtain: it is Panahi’s 8 ½, a film that reflects both the personal and creative crisis of the director, making the form of the work imitate its content. 

This is the beauty and limitation of Closed Curtain: not just a film that telegraphs its intentions  to the sympathetic audiences at the Berlinale (how can it ever be shown in Iran?) but also a gallant attempt to shape its form to express artistic repression.  It also reflects the price the director pays in a world of closed doors.

When this modernist strategy became evident, I could not help but think that the beautiful Maryam Moghadam is an Iranian rendition of Claudia Cardinale’s muse in 8 ½.  With a pinch of Pirandello thrown in the mix.

The co-director and actress came to Berlin.  As was to be expected, they were guarded and gave well-rehearsed answers to the obvious questions. 


Outside of the Berlinale Palace, a small group of human rights activists reminded those passing by, including television crews, what is at stake.