Review of Shirin (2009) by Kevin W — 29 Jun 2009

The latest from the great Iranian director continues the experimental path he's pursued this decade; notably his contribution to the recent anthology 'To Each His Cinema'. Here, he expands the conceit of filming an audience and capturing their reactions as they watch a film that we, as another audience do not see, but we can hear.

In this case, it's a film based upon a famous Persian poem of Khosrow and Shirin. Like his masterpiece at the start of the decade 'Ten', Kiarostami is concerned about looking at the position of women in contemporary Iran.

The film is solely composed of static shots of the faces of 114 Iranian actresses and Juliette Binoche. All wear headscarves, yet ironically, although this is a society that we imagine demands women to cover themselves up (some even seem to remove the headscarf), this is a celebration of the female face.

What we presume occurs on the screen depends on how we interpret the expressions in the faces of these actresses; joy, surprise, sadness. As such, the film is inevitably going to be hard for some audiences to swallow, but persevere because it's another mesmerising film from one of the greatest film makers of the last few decades.