No bears ★★★ ½
DRAMA (2022)
Directed by: Jafar Panahi
Performed by: Jafar Panahi, Mina Kavani

It is for this film that the director, who until recently was imprisoned in Tehran for “anti-government propaganda”, received a special prize from the committee of the Venice Film Festival.

One of the most unique films of the season – and not just for cinematic reasons – is out this week, albeit a little late, in Greek cinemas. Prominent Iranian director Jafar Panahi, who until recently was imprisoned in Tehran for “anti-government propaganda”, received a special prize from the committee of the Venice Film Festival for the genius of the concept of the film in which he plays … himself. Film director Panahi is trying to remotely shoot a film in Turkey, while he is forced to stay in an Iranian village near the border, issuing instructions via the Internet. However, he soon encounters the distrust and backward traditions of the locals, some of whom see him as undesirable, if not dangerous.

Panahi’s screenwriter, in fact, combines three different films into one, trying to highlight different aspects and problems of the current situation in Iran. On the one hand, we have the protagonist director who is no longer free to film in his own country, apparently due to censorship. However, in the film he creates remotely, the central characters are a couple trying to escape to Europe, which he is unable to do. At the same time, the first comic and then deeply tragic encounters he encounters in the microcosm of the village reflect much of what is wrong with Iran’s broader socio-political structure. A young couple wants to get married, but the girl is “dedicated” to something else. As the director subtly assists them, unprecedented violence erupts.

The genius of the Panaha script lies (and) in the fact that all of the following does not occur through a “sermon” to the viewer, but usually organically through the narrative. On the other hand, the fact that he himself is in front of the camera, as he has done in his other films, charges everything in a very distinct and personal way. “We’re still making films, even if it’s almost underground, but no one knows how much longer we’ll be able to do it,” the filmmaker, who went to jail last summer when he came to ask about the also illegal detention of his colleague Mohammad, seems to be saying Rasulov.