Review of Salaam Cinema (1995) by Ankur S — 21 Feb 2008

I saw this film cause it was only 71 minutes long...but after I saw it, I saw one of the most beautiful pictures that I have seen. Salaam Cinema is a small budget Iranian film made my Mohsen Makhmalbaf. Film opens with a killer scene where camera crew is capturing visuals of the crowd, who are all waiting to audition for a film. Audition is on to celebration 100 years of cinema. Filmmaker ends up making film on the people who have come for the audition. This film is sort of a documentary on Iranian culture. Amongst those who come for the audition almost all of them leave a good impression, especially the guy who acts like a blind person, so that he can create better impact on the director, then we see a girl who desparately wants to be an actress, so she can travel out of the country to meet her boyfriend. Amongst all those who come for the audition,, all of them claim to love cinema like anything...but what we see is the condition of Iran through their desparate act to be famous. they are all young and wanting to do something different, girls wanting to prove themself, boys wanting to be famous, and they are ready to go to any extent to get selected, as director asks them to laugh and cry in seconds time, asks them to fire gun, to act as if someones firing on them or act anything silly. An old man who was friend with the director in the jail( director was in jail for many years when he wsa young , as he was part of some group against the government),wants the director to take his young children as actors...

Short film, interesting film, simple film, film that makes u laugh, smile, but never bores u for a second.