intervention in the Middle Eastern civil wars and sectarian disputes in Iraq, Syria, Yemen, and the Palestinian Territories;6 Economic corruption among the authorities; and
7 The persistent antagonistic approaches between the Iranian regime and the United States government, resulting in sanctions against the Iranian people, the shrinking of the Iranian middle-class, and further economic disparity and social inequity.
Yet, arts in general and cinema in particular continued to thrive in the nation’s cultural scene. Iranian cinema has even found its niche among viewers outside of its national borders. Since Abbas Kiarostami’s Where Is the Friend’s House? (1987) found major international attention in the late 1980s, Iranian films have been featured annually in international film festivals. What is the drive behind Iranian cinema that has made it the dominant form of artistic expression in the post-revolutionary years? Why have many Iranians turned into ardent cinephiles? What is the value behind a national cinema that was able to offer some of the finest examples of art-house movies, ranking Iranian cinema among major non-western cinemas? How is it feasible to build a successful film culture when so many unfortunate events are happening in the national economic, political, and social realms? In recent years, as political activities were further suppressed, cinema took the burden of voicing people’s concerns and their aspirations. Therefore, Iranian cinema is not merely a form of escapist entertainment. It is a subversive art, transgressing the social, gendered, and political regulations of the Islamic regime. This chapter argues that the aesthetic and artistic values behind Iranian cinema made it possible for the national cinema to endure and even thrive against all odds. The last two sections of this chapter explore the aesthetic and artistic value of Iran’s post-revolutionary cinema from a cultural perspective.
The Aesthetics of the Curved Sarv and Its Public Artistic Value in Cinema
Iranian post-revolutionary art-house cinema evolved as a subversive and intellectually independent art form. It has resisted the ideological directives that were imposed on filmmakers by the Islamic regime. Yet, Iranian art-house cinema did not take the radical approach of the “Third Cinema” (Solanas and Getino 1970) in its response to suppression. In other words, the majority of art-house films produced by auteur filmmakers such as Kiarostami, Dariush Merhjui, and Rakhshan Banietemad, did not shape a counter-cinema. Art-house productions are not blatantly anti-establishment and most of them are not ostensibly political. The revolutionary and suppressive discourse of the Islamic regime that aimed to cripple liberal arts, individuality, and creativity was not met with an equally radical and sinister voice (see Sheibani 2011). One reason could be heavy censorship in the domain of cultural products. However, one could argue that if art-house cinema took an underground route instead, it could have taken the radical approach of Third Cinema; yet it did not.
Iranian art-house cinema responded to radicalism and extremism in the same way that classical Persian literature countered authoritarianism in the past: by using a humanist, subtle, modest tone, and an artistic language to create aesthetic progressive forms that are unyielding to the dominant politicized language of the central power. This is the aesthetics of a curved sarv/Persian cypress tree. The aesthetics of the curved sarv is a cultural and artistic value that has informed Persian and Iranian identity for thousands of years. Before discussing the connection between the concept of a curved cypress tree and Iranian art cinema, the semantic implications of a bent cypress tree in Iranian culture should be explained:
A cypress tree or sarv in Zoroastrian and Iranian culture is the symbol of nobility, livelihood, and eternal life. In Persian poetry, sarv symbolizes the “graceful figure and stately gait of the beloved” (A’lam [1993] 2011). In cultural and poetic discourses, a bent sarv symbolizes resistance, perseverance, humility, tolerance, and the enduring of difficult situations. The image of a bent sarv has been reproduced in the design of paisley/boteh jegheh in exquisite hand-made Iranian fabrics such as termeh (sometimes woven with gold and silver threads), jewelry, miniature painting, woodworking, architecture, and Persian carpets. In Persian mythology and folkloric stories, Iranian identity has been compared to a bent cypress, especially during difficult times when Persians were living under tyrannical rulers or under foreign occupation. Iranians had to forsake Persian language as a formal and literary language under the Arab rule for more than 300 years. But they kept the language alive in the domestic domain and in private written documents. The jewel of Persian language was kept alive, bent toward its roots like a curved sarv, to mount stoutly, once again, through Shahnameh (Book of Kings). Shahnameh (written in the 11th century by Ferdowsi) is the grand Persian epic poetry that has documented Persian mythology and legendary and historical accounts, thereby preserving the Persian language and Iranian identity.
Like a curved sarv, Iranian cinema essentially bent over and stayed modest from the start of the revolutionary turmoil in 1977 until the early 1980s. Most artistic productions were halted and when filmmaking resumed, it was the Islamized version of filmmaking. As mentioned before, many people in the film industry chose not to get involved in making ideological pictures (see Sheibani 2011, 1–10). In the mid-1980s, when governmental measures were relatively loosened, filmmakers once again started to make films. Because of the new restrictions, they had to employ a metaphorical language instead, to convey their messages. The aesthetics of the curved cypress, deeply engrained in the Iranian mindset, helped them to understand that if they keep their heads down and use an allegorically charged poetic language, they could manage to survive, and perhaps keep the cinema culture alive. This resulted in the reconstruction of the public aesthetic and national artistic values. A new art-house cinema evolved. It was simple, introspective, and poetic; yet its language was metaphorically complex. Here are a few examples of an independent unyielding art-house cinema that is subtly responsive to cultural boundaries and social restrictions.
In the Spring of 1979, just a few months after the revolution, Ayatollah Khomeini banned music in Iran. Playing any musical instruments or even carrying them on the streets was considered illegal. No music other than the revolutionary chants and religious music/nowheh was allowed to be played on the national radio and television, or in public or private spaces. The limitations were less restrictive in the case of the melancholic Persian classical music, compared to the jaunty pop music. As a result, musicians such as Chavosh Ensemble started a soft resistance by selling records and performing for limited private audiences. In June 1989 Khomeini died and as a result the cultural scene became slightly less restrictive. Still, the Islamic government had hostile relations with music and musicians. Under such conditions, Ali Hatami decided to make Delshodegan/The Love-Sstricken in 1992. The filmic narrative shows pioneer musicians, who had to travel abroad to record their music. The film was visually pleasing with elaborate costume and set designs picturing the 19th century Qajar era. It is a poetic celebration of Persian music. While the national TV banned showing musical instruments, The Love-Stricken was mostly focused on displaying, appreciating, and romanticizing Persian musical instruments. The voice of maestro Shajaryan, the most distinguished voice of Persian classical music was dubbed into singing sequences.
The filmic romance had two layers, the love for music and the love story between a Turkish princess and an Iranian singer in Paris. The Love-Stricken became the first post-revolutionary musical movie. It did not receive any national awards, but it was a fine example of the introspective Iranian art-house cinema. Hossein Alizadeh, the composer of the songs for the movie recalls that one of the main objectives of Hatami in making the film was to familiarize people with Persian musical instruments and to reconcile the cinema with music. (Alizadeh 2013)
An analytical review of Iranian art-house cinema in the late 1980s and onward shows that when motion pictures were threatened by a fundamentalist agenda, they became aesthetically and artistically richer. In a self-reflexive mode, filmmakers started to deepen their point of view into the smaller details of life to discover the poetry of life. As the war became more combative and more people were killed, some filmmakers were zooming in on the mundanity of everyday life to evade taking part in agitating
