Long time, no see!

Hey guys! It's been a while since I posted, I know. Sorry, sorry! I've had a rather introverted past few weeks.
This evening, I went to a film from the Iranian film festival at the MFAH. It was incredible. I came home and immediately wrote a review, which I'll post here. Please, please try to get to it and see it!

The Iranian Film Festival, the longest-running film festival at the Museum of Fine Arts, is currently showing at the MFAH and Rice University. I went to the MFAH in the evening of January 23 to view My Tehran For Sale, a film produced by Granaz Moussavi, a female Iranian director with a lineage of filmmaking.

I am not an expert of Iranian culture or politics -- not by far. My father grew up in Turkey, but I lived an American life, neon lights and drawled “y’alls” populating my existence. Of course, summers meant trips to Turkey, where I became familiar with the five-times-a-day muezzin and the taste of a foreign language, flowing words I couldn’t understand save for a few.

However My Tehran For Sale leapt beyond all generational and cultural gaps, seizing on the very humanity of the audience to captivate and hold our attention. I sat, still, watching scene after scene flash by on the big screen in front of me, and it became my world as I watched the main character live an underground, hidden, and yet public life in her native Iran.

Marzieh, the protagonist and a young actress in Tehran, has her deeply emotional work banned by the authorities and therefore leads what is stereotypically the ultimate public career -- acting -- behind a curtain. This film gives everyone an insight to the middle-class youth life that director Moussavi describes as one that “must be lead,” half in light, but half in the shadows of secret concert halls and raves, crowded apartments and whispered conversations, courtyards and alleyways.

Moussavi makes clear the need to depict not only the “glamorous” side of this underground culture (the private poetry readings between friends, the music and the food) but also the harder side of the need to conceal one’s entire existence. She tackles touchy subjects such as unwanted pregnancies, abortions, drugs and sexually transmitted diseases, playing them out well and completely without being overdone, flashy, or fake.

Though indeed her transitions between the dual world of night and day are smooth, her characters undergo obvious signs of emotional displacement. When things are brought to light, when the dreamy world of the night ends in favor of the sunrise, characters such as Marzieh are left to deal with an often harsh reality.

This is mirrored in the physical displacement of many Iranians that she portrays -- including not only Marzieh and her lover, but the anonymous crowds of Tehranians vying for visas. These characters are the ultimate symbol of duality with their juxtaposition of embrace of Iranian culture and longing for a physical refuge.

Through an incredibly seamless non-linear narrative, Moussavi foreshadows events and plot line without giving it away, not only tying the story completely together by the end, but also using the breaks between the chronologically-driven story as somewhat of a bridge between scenes, offering the viewer a respite from the passionate and intense story line without dead space.

Also adding to the rich artistic landscape of My Tehran For Sale was the soundtrack. Comprised of a combination of traditional folk songs and tracks that are themselves a part of the hidden Iranian life, the film showcased evocative melody after melody, heightening the viewer’s sense of and immersion in the culture. I found myself taking names of songs and musicians afterward in hopes of resurfacing these jewels of the international indie music scene.

With the question and answer session following the film came and onslaught of cultural roadblocks I hadn’t even thought of Moussavi as having to endure. Lists of permits and regulations hinder greatly the international distribution of films that, as this one does, deal with the culture in such a way that portrays “the authorities” as anything but benificent leaders. Moussavi, however, showed an optimistic face regarding these hindrances.

“I’m sure that even under such extreme circumstances,” Moussavi said, “the younger generation will be able to produce. There will be alternative ways.”

And as her protagonist, Marzieh, discovers in the film, Moussavi herself seems to embody the idea of hope through international communications, the sharing of films, music and ideas to bring together this global culture we all are a part of.

Sara