Review of This Is Not a Film (2011) by Ivan D — 10 Aug 2012

It is hard to judge Jafar Panahi's latest "film" (or is it?) without considering its context and backstory (i.e., he has been sentenced to six years in prison and forbidden from making films for 20 years by the Iranian government for subversion, basically).

Should we even judge it without the backstory? This is a theoretical question but it seems to me that no one would be watching this film without first knowing the political context. In that light, this "day-in-the-life" of someone under house arrest (while the appeals court is deciding his fate) tells us many things we already know but let's us see how Panahi is coping and also makes us worry how the authorities will react to this latest act of resistance.

Learning later that some of this was scripted suggests metaphors might be lurking (the iguana is just as trapped and out of place as Panahi is when kept from his film set?). In keeping with a lot of Iranian cinema (such as Kiarostami who I know best) there is a self-reflexivity at work here (seemingly artless events are instead the product of an intelligence which capitalizes on chance, highlighting the nature and methods of cinema to the viewer).

But with all that said, I did not engage with this brief video diary as much as I have with Panahi's more traditional features. And that may be part of the point.