With Journey to the Dawn still languishing in post-production, its acclaimed director Abbas Kiarostami recommended fellow Iranian Abolfazl Jalili's new film as a similarly spirited replacement for a coveted competition slot at Venice. Jalili's five previous features include 1987's Gal (Scabies), 1992's Raghs-e khak (Dance of Dust) and 1994's Det, yani dokhtar (Det, Means Girl). For Jalili, Det also meant an Osella d'Oro at Venice last year.
His latest film, Yek dastan-e vaghe'i (A True Story), is the naturalistic tale of a filmmaker searching for a young boy to star in his film. When the director finds the youngster, he realises the boy has problems of his own. Neglecting his project, the director tries to help his star.
As the title suggests, Yek dastan is based on a true story. Although the film was already in preparation when Det, yani dokhtar appeared at Venice last year, the 39-year-old director was forced to delay shooting until he found his young protagonist. As true stories go, however, this is more De Sica than the Coen brothers, with Jalili using amateurs for his cast in keeping with neo-realist tradition. 'Professionals can be very systematic and machine-like,' he explains. 'I prefer to work with amateurs because, basically, I like their unaffected naturalness.'
Jalili believes that, just as neo-realism was a radical experiment some 50 years ago, his own naturalism is now a reaction to modern day trends. 'The current film industrydidn't attract me,' he says of his decision to make Yek dastan. 'I was tired of sex and violence and tales of deceit, and I was looking for an answer to my own aspirations in the cinema, which inspired me to create a fresh, original style of my own or not make movies at all.'
Yek dastan-e vaghe'i's selection for Venice testifies not only to the fact that Jalili may well have found the originality he was searching for, but also to the growing international reputation of his country's cinema. Iranian cinema can be loosely classified as pre-revolutionary, post-revolutionary, and international. It blossomed in the late 60s and continued to flowerduring most of the 70s, but thenwilted under the restrictions of post-revolutionary society. But the late 80s saw an increasing respect for film as artistic expression. As Kiarostami's semi-autobiographical Closeup (1990) shows, Iran now reveres its serious film makers with a passion rarely seen beyond the pages of Cahiers du Cinéma. Suspicions remain, however, with Kiarostami needing a tribute from no less than Akira Kurosawa to refute allegations that his greatness as a filmmaker was not mere propaganda from the West, aka the 'Great Satan'.
Nevertheless, the West, notably France, has embraced Iranian filmmakers over the last seven years. This is in no small way due to the West realising that, contrary to its traditional pre-occupation, Iranian films are not necessarily political documents (a typical interview question used to be, 'How does your film challenge orthodoxy?').
Kiarostami has been Iran's leading artistic light since his European debut at Locarno in 1989 with Where is the Friend's House? Subsequently he has produced works of lyrical artistry such as And Life Goes On (1992) and Through the Olive Trees (1994). The 56-year-old godfather of Iranian cinema has also found the time to support the new generation of Iranian filmmakers, contributing a script of deceptive, understated brilliance for Jafar Panahi's The White Balloon.
After winning the Camera d'Or at Cannes in 1995, Panahi's tale of a 7-year-old girl's quest to buy a goldfish was the first Iranian film to secure a serious art-house launch in the US. It also proved the potential appeal of the simple and naturalistic when blessed with technical skill, artistic vision and genuine compassion. On a similar recommendation from Kiarostami, Abolfazl Jalili's Yek dastan-e vaghe'i deserves to be watched. Adam Minns
Prod co: IRIB
Prod/Dir/Scr: Abolfazl Jalili
Ph: Masud Korani
Eds: Manouchehr Oliai, Abolfazl Jalili
Cast: Samad Khani, Mehdi Asadi, Abolfazl Jalili
Running time: 140 mins
Int'l sales: CMI
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