#thisisnotafilm

Reaction Paper to “This Is Not a Film”

by Jafar Panahi and Mojtaba Mirtahmasb

           This is not a film was created by Jafar Panahi due to the restrictions of the government to ban all filmmaking and anything related to it and his rebellious act.

          I will be frank or honest, i thought the film was uninteresting, but that doesn't mean i dont respect the film or creation. message is the most important thing nonetheless . What matters is that I got the point of the creator, on how he got a loophole in the film ban and I thought that was very clever.

           I interpreted what he did as him proving that you can always find a way around a problem if something is your passion. I also interpreted it as a cry for help on how his life was as he was on house arrest for years, and a cry for help. The war in their country was really severe that he didn't even have the freedom to do what he is passionate about

           I can see that he is really creative as he used the resources around him and made them work to his advantage. Although they are limited, he got to show the world his message and what he wanted to say. In my opinion is that it was really innovative because other directors would just give up, unlike him. He shows confidence to what he does even if he sometimes gets frustrated and doubts himself, but i think that's always part of the process of achieving something

          His work paid off as his film reached Cannes Film Festival in Paris, France the best film festival there is if I am not mistaken. They didn't show in the film how the viewers in Cannes Film Festival reacted or if they did something to help but I hope they did. This film shows that even if something is socially unacceptable in other people's eyes it is still not wrong and you should still pursue it.

          I thought his incredible thinking really deserves an award because his perspective was really well thought of not considering how he thought to transport the usb low key by inserting it into a cake to be received by his friends in Paris. If he didn't push through with this, no one would have ever heard of what he was going through.

Watching Jafar Panahi's pseudo-documentary "This is Not a Film" was a darkly playful experience. Panahi's most recent effort -- not a film in the usual sense, or at all by his own standards -- depicts a day in Panahi's life as a filmmaker who is not allowed to make films by order of the Islamic Republic. 

It almost entirely takes place inside Panahi's apartment in Tehran as he discusses this legal situation with his lawyer (he is appealing a 20-year ban from filmmaking, and a serious prison sentence), feeds his iguana "Igi" and talks about his films and filmmaking with his friend, another filmmaker, Mojtaba Mirtahmasb (who would spend three months in prison later that year for similar violations). There is a deadpan or darkly comic air to the entire day as Panahi, forbidden from "directing" but not from "speaking a screenplay", explains the set-up for the screenplay which he is not allowed to film (and by consequence, being punished for). Describing a few scenes where a young Isfahani girl deals with her relationship with a young boy who comes by her house and with her grandmother, he eventually breaks down at his own inability to convey what turns a screenplay or his reading of a script into a film. This launches him into an explanation of a couple of his own films to demonstrate why what he was filming that day is not a "film". This includes the crucial scene from The Mirror where the child actress playing the lead runs off set, taking off the cast she has been wearing, and changing the whole course of the film. He then turns to Crimson Gold and a scene in which the main character reacts to bad news at the bank in a truly unique way. The actor in that particular scene is apparently schizophrenic, a fact glossed over in Panahi's description (Ebert, 2012). 

The events take place on "Fireworks Wednesday" (Chaharshanbe Suri), a Zoroastrian holiday before Noorouz, after Ayatollah Khamanei had disallowed the use of Fireworks on the holiday. Interestingly, this is also the name of a recent film by Ashgar Farhadi, who recently became the first Iranian to win an Oscar for A Separation (2011). This becomes crucial in the final scene where Panahi picks up the camera, follows the young man who has come to collect the trash in the apartment out into the street, a small act of defiance stemming from a completely improvised act, much like the aspects previously described that made up Panahi's "films".  Panahi, it should be noted, has gone to great lengths to continue the efforts of his predecessors throughout his film career. He began as an assistant to one of the giants of Iranian New Wave -- Abbas Kiarostami (Chesire, 2012). "This is Not a Film" is a powerful political statement in part because it demonstrates both the repressive restrictions placed on Iranian filmmakers, but also the ways in which those restrictions are ultimately ineffective at stopping Iran's artists from doing what they love, and speaking out. If, as Chesire states, "Kiarostami... [is] generally credited with introducing cinema itself as a subject for Iranian films" it is Panahi (in part through the insistence of his friend Mirtahmasb) who has proven that the struggle to create film in the face of restriction, is itself possible of producing the same sorts of "filmic" dramas that populate film proper -- even if they don't quite amount to a "film". 

Roger Ebert, "This is Not A  Film" (Review) http://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/this-is-not-a-film-2012, April 11, 2012, Accessed December 10, 2013

“This is not a film” at the surface is about a man, Jafar Panahi, who is waiting to hear about his sentence for what his government thinks he has done wrong. If you dig deeper while watching the movie there is more than just that going on. I personally love Jafar Panahi’s way of making movies so it not just a good story but there is meanings behind it.

Photo Credited: Courtesy of CSMonitor 

            “In his films Jafar Panahi critically examines the social circumstances in his country.” - ThisisNotaFilm.net

            “Critics started claiming that these films merely showed Iranian’s daily life and the reality on the streets which, to some extent, is true.” - Ehsan Khoshbakht, Fandor.com

Through the movie, “This is not a film”, it acknowledges the other things going on around Jafar, such as things going on in the Iranian government. First thing seen in the movie was Jafar Panahi waiting for his sentence. He was getting punished for apparently committing propaganda toward the Iranian government. Majority of the film was focused on this but that is not all that was going on. Next he was describing his screenplay, that he never got to film, where he had the main character who was woman dealing with the issue of trying to go to this college interview. Most of her family wouldn’t let her go. Jafar was challenging the issue that women aren’t able to do as much as men in his country and that shouldn’t be how it is. Then in the movie we hear noises like fireworks and gunshots outside Jafar’s house. He then turns on the news to see that there was a tsunami in Japan and later it announced that Iran’s president has banned any fireworks and bonfires that used to mark Chaharshambe Suri. This event is a festival to celebrate the end of a year and the start of a new one. It is also called Wednesday Feast.

Photo Credit: Camera Slayer

Lastly in the last screen of the movie Jafar goes outside with the camera and the young man says don’t go any further Jafar they can’t see you with the camera. This makes a perfect ending to a very challenging and inspiring movie.

It is truly inspiring that this movie without any planning at all turned out so profound and meaningful. 

Sources

Quotes:

http://www.fandor.com/blog/the-battle-of-tehran-jafar-panahi-speaks

http://www.thisisnotafilm.net/filmmaker.html

Photos:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/cameraslayer/721257509/

http://www.flickr.com/photos/aslanmedia_official/6946177879/

Other: 

http://www.parstimes.com/library/chrshnbsuri.html