Panahi, Jafar 1960-

views updated

Panahi, Jafar 1960-

PERSONAL:

Born July 11, 1960, in Mianeh, Iran; married; children: one son, one daughter. Education:Attended College of Cinema and Television, Tehran, Iran.

ADDRESSES:

Agent—c/o Director Mail, 419 Park Ave. S., 20th Fl., New York, NY 10016.

CAREER:

Film director, producer, editor, and writer. Director of films, including Yarali Bashlar ("Wounded Heads"), 1988; Negah-e Dovom ("The Second Look"), 1989; Kish, 1991; Doust ("The Friend"), 1992;Akharin Emtehan ("The Last Examination"), 1992; (and editor and production designer) Badkonak-e sefid(The White Balloon), Civite/IFA, 1995; (and producer and editor) Ayneh (The Mirror), Celluloid Dreams/Primer Plano Film Group, 1997; (and editor) Ardekoul,1997; (and producer and editor) Dayereh (The Circle), Mikado, 2000; Talaye sorgh (Crimson Gold), 2003; Offside, 2006. Editor, Mosafere jonub ("Traveler from the South"), 1997. Assistant director, Through the Olive Trees, 1994. Military service: Iranian Army, 1980-90; served during Iran-Iraq War; became cinematographer for film division.

AWARDS, HONORS:

Caméra d'Or and International Critics' Prize, both Cannes Film Festival, and best foreign language film citation, New York Film Critics Circle, all for The White Balloon; Golden Leopard, Locarno Festival, for The Mirror; Golden Lion, Venice Film Festival, 2000, for The Circle; Freedom of Expression Award, National Board of Review, 2000; Prix du Jury—Un Certain Regard, 2003, for Talaye sorgh.

WRITINGS:

SCREENPLAYS

Ayneh (also known as The Mirror), Celluloid Dreams/Primer Plano Film Group, 1997.

Ardekoul (documentary), 1997.

SIDELIGHTS:

Award-winning Iranian filmmaker Jafar Panahi has built a reputation for making movies that reveal the challenges faced by those living with social inequities in Iran. In his films Badkonak-e sefid (The White Balloon), Ayneh (The Mirror), and Dayereh(The Circle), the victims of Iran's social structure are women, though less so in the first title; in his more recent Talaye sorgh (Crimson Gold), it is the poor in general.

Because of their subject matter, Panahi's films have sometimes been censored by the Iranian government, which tried to remove The White Balloon from Oscar contention as best foreign film. Passing his work by government censors has also caused long delays in his projects, sometimes taking years before they are released. With his The White Balloon and The Mirrorfeaturing young children as stars, censorship was not quite as much of a problem. On the other hand, The Circle was about women whose lives are nearly destroyed by Iran's chauvinistic culture, and so it faced more severe restrictions.

The White Balloon and The Mirror both involve young girls on quests of sorts. In the former, a girl is on a mission to buy a goldfish for a New Year's celebration. She must undergo several challenges along the way, including convincing her poor mother to give her the money in the first place, and then losing and finding the money again later on. It seems like a simple story, "but the movie's real virtue lies in the way it exposes us to the inner workings of a society about which we know little," explained Robert Denerstein in the Rocky Mountain News. Because Panahi is restricted from telling his point about society outright due to censorship, he uses metaphor in the film, including the goldfish and the balloon of the title.

A little more direct—and experimental—is The Mirror.Here, the story is ostensibly about another little Iranian girl whose mother, for some reason, has not picked her up after school. She decides to make her way home by herself, but halfway through the film, she abruptly changes from girl character to girl actor, speaking to the cameraman shooting the film and saying she is tired of being an actress. She storms off, continuing on her quest to go home—but is it her real home or the home of her character? The strange situation that mixes fiction and real life is instigated when the girl is told by a bus driver that, because she is female, she has to enter the bus from the rear door. Some critics of the film, such as San FranciscoChronicle contributor Edward Guthmann, felt this twist "doesn't work, coming off as sloppy self-indulgence." In a completely opposing view, Kevin Thomas asserted in his Los Angeles Times review of The Mirror that it is a "graceful, fluid film that captures so well the vitality of everyday life in bustling Tehran."

Panahi's The Circle features several women characters who suffer from their chauvinistic society in several ways. One woman at the beginning of the film gives birth to a baby girl, when she had been expecting a boy; the birth is seen as an immense tragedy by her family; other women find themselves outcasts of society because they are not married and have no men to look after them; in other scenes, the director shows a woman abandoning her girl baby, and in another a mother seeks an abortion. Panahi uses smoking, which the women are not allowed to do, as a metaphor throughout the film for their oppression. All the women wish to smoke cigarettes, but have to hide their desire from everyone else. Stephen Whitty, writing in the Newark Star-Ledger, called The Circle a "grim masterpiece. … Every character in it is politically incorrect; every action they take a flagrant defiance of the religious ruling class." Panahi, does not criticize all men in Iran, however. Indeed, many of the male characters in The Circle are portrayed as very kindly, sympathetic figures. It is the oppressive religious state that makes the women's lives so hard. Guardiancontributor Peter Bradshaw echoed the opinion of many other film critics when he described the movie as a "harrowingly powerful film" that "is a compelling, humane and deeply serious" work.

Crimson Gold is an explosive tale about the humiliation of the poor and the violence that can result. In the film, a young man named Hussein is made to feel ashamed when he is thrown out of an expensive jewelry store. He is humiliated again when a police officer refuses to let him in to make a delivery; and in another scene, Hussein feels extreme envy when he encounters a rich man who boasts of his expensive possessions. All of this builds up in Hussein, who later returns to the jewelry store to release his anger on the shop owner and himself.

Panahi has known the sting of such humiliation himself. In 2001, his airplane landed at JFK airport. He was only there on a stopover on his way from Hong Kong to Buenos Aires. However, the U.S. government had passed a law saying that some foreigners, including those from Iran, had to be fingerprinted upon arriving in the United States, even for a short time. The director had refused to be fingerprinted because he had committed no crime and he found the demand to be insulting. As a result, he was handcuffed and detained for about twelve hours, though he was eventually released. "Panahi says he may use his detention in his next work," reported Jonathan Curiel in the San Francisco Chronicle, "mining the incident for cinematic purposes."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

BOOKS

Contemporary Theatre, Film and Television, Volume 35, Thomson Gale (Detroit, MI), 2001.

PERIODICALS

Albuquerque Journal, May 11, 2001, Jonathan Richards, review of The Circle, p. 1.

American Spectator, May, 1996, James Bowman, review of The White Balloon, p. 60.

Artforum International, March, 2001, Leslie Camhi, review of The Circle, p. 37.

Boston Herald, September 18, 1998, Paul Sherman, review of The Mirror, p. 18; May 11, 2001, James Verniere, review of The Circle, p. S13; May 17, 2001, Stephen Schaefer, review of The Circle,p. 53.

Christian Science Monitor, January 24, 1996, David Sterritt, review of The White Balloon, p. 14; January 2, 1997, David Sterritt, review of The White Balloon, p. 12.

Detroit News, April 30, 1999, review of The Mirror,p. 3; May 11, 2001, review of The Circle, p. 3.

Economist, September 23, 2000, review of The Circle,p. 102.

Entertainment Weekly, April 20, 2001, Lisa Schwarzbaum, review of The Circle, p. 49.

Evening Standard (London, England), September 20, 2001, Alexander Walker, review of The Circle,p. 30.

Film Comment, July, 2000, Mohammad Atebbal, review of The Mirror, p. 14; March, 2001, Paul Arhtur, review of The Circle, p. 22.

Film International: Iranian Film, spring, 2000, Shadmehr Rastin, "Jafar Panahi: The Man Who Does Not Bargain on Cinema."

Film Quarterly, spring, 2001, William Johnson, review of The Circle, p. 53.

Guardian (London, England), January 8, 1996, Simon Hattenstone, review of The White Balloon, p. 11; September 21, 2001, Peter Bradshaw, review ofThe Circle, p. 13.

Hudson Review, fall, 1996, Bert Cardullo, review ofThe White Balloon, pp. 475-482; winter, 2000, Bert Cardullo, review of The Mirror, pp. 649-656.

Independent (London, England), September 21, 2001, review of The Circle, p. 10.

Independent Sunday (London, England), September 23, 2001, Jonathan Romney, review of The Circle,p. 10.

Library Journal, December, 2001, Jeff T. Dick, review of The Circle, p. 194.

Los Angeles Times, September 6, 1998, Kenneth Turan, review of The White Balloon, p. 5; March 18, 1999, Kevin Thomas, review of The Mirror, p. 6; March 6, 2001, Kevin Thomas, review of The Circle, p. F34; April 20, 2001, Kenneth Thomas, "Iranian Director Detained, Sent Home," p. F4; Kenneth Turan, review of The Circle, p. F11.

Maclean's, March 11, 1996, Brian D. Johnson, review of The White Balloon, p. 60.

Nation, February 5, 1996, Stuart Klawans, review ofThe White Balloon, p. 36; April 30, 2001, Tim Appelo, review of The Circle, p. 34.

National Catholic Reporter, March 22, 1996, Joseph Cunneen, review of The White Balloon, p. 13; May 11, 2001, Joseph Cunneen, review of The Circle, p. 17.

National Review, March 26, 1996, John Simon, review of The White Balloon, p. 62.

New Republic, February 26, 1996, Stanley Kauffmann, review of The White Balloon, p. 28.

New York, April 23, 2001, Peter Rainer, review of The Circle, pp. 138-139.

New Yorker, April 23, 2001, David Denby, review ofThe Circle, pp. 196-197.

New York Post, April 13, 2001, review of The Circle,p. 39.

New York Times, September 29, 1995, Janet Maslin, review of The White Balloon, p. C28; January 24, 1996, Janet Maslin, review of The White Balloon,p. C12; January 10, 1997, Janet Maslin, review ofThe White Balloon, pp. B13, B15; November 25, 1998, Stephen Holden, review of The Mirror,p. E14; September 26, 2000, A.O. Scott, review ofThe Circle, pp. B1, E1; April 13, 2001, A.O. Scott, review of The Circle, pp. B14, E14; April 15, 2001, interview with Jafar Panahi, p. AR13; December 14, 2001, review of The Circle, p. E31.

Observer (London, England), September 23, 2001, Peter Preston, review of The Circle, p. 7.

Premiere, February, 1996, J. Hoberman, review of The White Balloon, p. 20; April, 2001, review of The Circle, p. 105.

Rocky Mountain News, May 3, 1993, Robert Denerstein, "A Simple, Revealing Glimpse of Iran," review of The White Balloon, p. 10D.

San Francisco Chronicle, January 6, 1996, James Ulmer, "Iran Tries to Pull Film from Oscars," p. E3; March 10, 1996, review of The White Balloon,p. 47; March 15, 1996, Edward Guthmann, review of The White Balloon, p. D3; January 15, 1999, Edward Guthmann, review of The Mirror, p. D6; May 4, 2001, Wesley Morris, review of The Circle, p. C3; May 8, 2001, Jonathan Curiel, "A Filmmaker Feels the Circle Tighten: Iran's Panahi Put in Chains—in U.S.," p. E1.

Seattle Post-Intelligencer, October 2, 1998, William Arnold, review of The Mirror, p. 28; April 27, 2001, Sean Axmaker, review of The Circle, p. 31.

Seattle Times, April 5, 1996, review of The White Balloon,p. F5; April 27, 2001, John Zebrowski, review of The Circle, p. G31.

Sight and Sound, January, 1996, Simon Louvish, review of The White Balloon, p. 57; October, 2001, Julian Graffy, review of The Circle, pp. 44-45.

St. Louis Post-Dispatch, June 8, 2001, Harper Barnes, review of The Circle, p. E2.

Star-Ledger (Newark, NJ), April 13, 2001, Stephen Whitty, "Iranian Repression Forges Cinematic Gem," review of The Circle, p. 42.

Sunday Times (London, England), September 23, 2001, Steve Grant, review of The Circle, p. 9.

Time February 12, 1996, Richard Corliss, review ofThe White Balloon, p. 76; December 7, 1998, Richard Corliss, review of The Mirror, p. 230; February 26, 2001, Richard Corliss, review of The Circle, p. 72.

Times (London, England), September 22, 2001, David Willoughby, review of The Circle, p. 6.

Variety, August 25, 1997, Derek Elley, review of The Mirror, p. 76; September 11, 2000, Deborah Young, review of The Circle, p. 25.

Wall Street Journal, February 6, 1996, Joe Morgenstern, review of The White Balloon, p. A12; April 13, 2001, Joe Morgenstern, review of The Circle,p. W11.

Washington Post, March 7, 2001, "Powell Pays Tribute to Iranian Honorees," p. A18; May 25, 2001, Stephen Hunter, review of The Circle,p. C12.

Washington Times, March 1, 1996, Gary Arnold, review of The White Balloon, p. 16; May 26, 2001, Gary Arnold, review of The White Balloon,p. 3.