This is not a film




Jafar Panahi’s “this is not a film” is more than just a film, it is a daily account of his house arrest, a session about his philological view on cinema, but more importantly, a brilliant and brave attempt on making such documentary amid his own and the country’s difficult situation. The film was allegedly smuggled out from the countries via a USB stick that is hidden in a cake, in which the process itself could be just as interesting to be a film on its own merit.


The structure of the documentary was loosely following on a day at Panahi’s house, in which he is awaiting for his 6 yrs prison term as well as a 10 yrs ban of filmmaking. Equipped with the most basic camera, that is a video cam plus and iPhone, he and his colleague Mojtaba Mirtahmasb (credited as co-director) began to record his attempt on “telling” a script and pre-mediate the scene in which he envisage if the film is ever to made. However, rather make it a mundane piece of work, we followed Panahi’s creative thinking process on how to create a piece of art in a stimulating, radical and very much playful & interesting way. At one scene, he used masking tape to create an interior of a house/room for the film protagonist, (who is also kept in her own house by her family, much like what Panahi is experiencing).


Panahi mostly remains remarkably upbeat, at times, even with good-humor (such as with his pet, which is a large lizard!), although at times, his anxiety creeps in, esp. looking his own situation and frustration of only “telling” a film (as he voice out, what’s the point of making a film if it can just being told?). He revisits his own films, Crimson Gold and The Circle, as well as Mirror; Trying to shows that in the process of film making, unexpected things could happen to his nonprofessional actors and there is no way to predict or direct beforehand, but it is exactly this kind of moment that makes his film special, with this kind spontaneous action and reaction, between its actors, the filmmaker and eventually to their audiences. Then he almost put up the same trick with a garbage collector in his building, he pick up his video cam and began to shoot a short but entertaining, if not interesting, “interview” between them.


What make this “film” interesting was, not what kind of subject is being discussed (whether it is the difficult situation in which the director is in, or how the truths can be captured by camera), but how they are being “told”. For this, Panahi’s brilliant, witty, thoughtful way of re-creating them had made this documentary/film/recording, a form of art that haven’t really defined/existed.


More info:


http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1667905/

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