Understanding Iran Through Film: A Personal Reflection

I’ve been reflecting on my introduction to Iran. Most of what I have learned about Iran has been through film. The first film that introduced me to the Iranian Revolution was Argo. I was a sophomore in high school and watched that particular film because another film, Argo, in which Daniel Day-Lewis was competing for awards, was nominated for the Oscars. I watched the film Rose Water because John Stewart directed the film. It wasn’t the kind of film I normally would have watched, but I enjoyed it more than I thought. It provided another window into a world I didn’t understand but had heard a lot about on the news. I watched Fox News a lot in high school, and there was a lot of talk about Iran and what the people in Iran were like. The film Rose Water showed a family devastated by their involvement in political dissent. Other Iranians were shown playing Western video games. It’s been several years, so I might be incorrect on the exact game, but I think it was Grand Theft Auto. For the first time, I made the connection that people in this faraway country weren’t that different from people I knew.

When I got to college, part of being in the honors program was taking honors electives, and one of those electives was Iranian film and cinema. I had exhausted my ability to take many honors courses because I came into college with many AP credits, and many of the honors courses offered were introductory history courses. With few options available, I tentatively signed up. Our professor was an impressive Iranian-American woman who worked in the English and rhetoric department. Over the course of the semester, she shared her life story with us. Due to her being a member of a minority religious group, she’d had to leave Iran. She had taught at the university level in Iran, and upon coming to the US, she had to start from the beginning with her educational and professional credentials. None of her degrees from Iran transferred to the US, so, from what I understood of her story, she started over at the undergraduate level and earned another PhD, having already undergone that journey in her home country.

I had a hard time connecting with her as a person. She came across as brusque and sometimes unwelcoming. I don’t know if it was the cultural divide or the mindset I was in at the time I attended college, but I admired her work ethic. I often felt as though the films we were watching were for people smarter than I. We would watch a film in the evenings and then discuss it during the next class period. So many of my classmates had insightful and intelligent thoughts. I would sit in class thinking, “It would be better to say nothing than to sound stupid.” The first film, Gaav (in English, The Cow), is about a man who loses his beloved pet cow and then has a mental breakdown. He ends up behaving like a cow. I remember watching the film and leaving the classroom after. I didn’t fully understand what had happened, and the discussion didn’t go much further in clarifying my understanding. I remember thinking, “ It’s very dumb he’s acting like a cow.” I did not share this with the class. I had an intense fear that the rest of the films would leave me feeling this confused and unable to render useful commentary in class. Thankfully, the films got better, and I was able to connect with the characters.

The first film I remember feeling deeply about was The Circle, which explored the fate of women in Iran. While we watched a film in Iran, our professor also used it as an opportunity to explore the Iranian perspective more broadly. I remember a political cartoon of two women, one was in a bikini on the beach, the other was wearing a more conservative outfit with a hijab, both had thought bubbles coming out of their heads saying how they thought the other was being objectified and oppressed. She talked about how, prior to the Iranian revolution that had overthrown the Shah, many religious Iranians felt judged for wanting to wear conservative garb. She also talked about the role America played in supporting the Shah and in allowing him and his wife to come to the US after the revolution, a role that was not forgotten by Iranians. All the main characters in that film being women, I’m sure, made it easier to connect to them. I remember that the women each had something they were trying to escape from, and no matter how hard they tried, they could not find a way out of their troubles. I remember wishing I could have helped each of them find a way out, or at least make their situation better. At that time, I had more autonomy, freedom, and options than those women did. I felt trapped inside my own head. I wanted someone to come and help me out of the circular thoughts I couldn’t break free from. I also related to the character, the nurse, who was hiding part of her past from her husband. At the time, I often felt I was trying to hide the depth and intensity of my emotions. When we find people relatable, it’s much harder to vilify them.

We also discussed at length how making film was a form of resistance to the regime, and many filmmakers were imprisoned for making their art. I remember being shown one film shot from the back of a film, and another shot on an iPhone called This is not a Film by a gentelman who was unfortunately under house arrest but continued to make art despite his imprisonment. The film was about his life under house arrest. I remember marveling at the bravery of this individual, continuing to do what had already gotten him in so much trouble despite knowing the cruelty of the regime. The film was eventually smuggled out of the country and shown at international film festivals.

My favorite film that we watched in class was the last film. I remember finishing that film and wishing all the films we had watched were as good as that final one. The last film was called A Separation. Our professor told us before watching the film that it would open with a family whose visas to leave Iran had been approved. She told us that these visas are very hard to get, almost impossible. The film continues after they get the visas. The dad doesn’t want to leave; he wants to stay and take care of his own ailing father. I felt very frustrated with the husband/father. Could he not see that the opportunities for his daughter would be limited if they stayed in their home country? His own wife also would have fewer opportunities and probably wanted to experience a different kind of life by leaving Iran. The disease that the grandfather was struggling with was terminal. Whether they stayed in Iran or not, he was going to pass away. Nader and Simin file for divorce because one of them wants to leave the country and the other doesn’t. The divorce is granted at the end. The movie ends with their daughter being asked who she wants to live with, her mom or dad.    

The struggles of dealing with a sick and elderly parent, a marriage struggling because of different priorities, and the other problems faced by the families in the film are issues that are faced by families around the world. When the daughter was asked who she wanted to live with, the question was really more complicated than just picking a parent. The film never reveals where the mother wants the family to move to once they leave Iran. If she goes with her mom, they’ll be moving to an unknown country where she might not know the language and will have to make new friends, start at a new school, etc. If she stays in Iran with her dad, she gets to stay in her school and in a familiar environment, but her opportunities and life are curtailed by the rules imposed on women by the regime in Iran. I tried to think about the choice that I would have made. I wanted to think that I would have been brave enough at such a young age to leave my home country, but I’m not sure that I would have been. I also remember feeling frustrated with the mother and father for putting their daughter in the situation in the first place. I felt they should have decided between the two of them that she was going with her mother and taken that burden off her. With the showing of that film, the course came to an end. I didn’t have the opportunity to take another course with her during my time there. The Iranian film courses and the courses taught by a former geographer for special military forces were the most informative courses I took during my time in Milledgeville. They helped shape how I understand current events to this day. As I see wars continue to rage in the Middle East, specifically, with the war in Iran, I hope there is a time in the not-so-distant future that the beautiful history, art, and culture of the region can take center stage.