This is Not a Film, Jafar Panahi (2011)

Jafar Panahi, director, producer, writer and the documentary's main subject, has been put under house arrest for allegedly promoting anti-regime ideology through film. His sentence is a 20 year ban on film-making and 6 years in prison.

We hear a conversation over the phone with a lawyer who is apparently un-optimistic about Jafar's pending appeal of this sentence. This, having followed a string of mundane fly-on-the-wall scenes of Jafar's morning, comes as quite the surreal exposition where the banal makes trivial and quotidian the harsh realities of a strict state married to religion. Jafar judiciously makes the most of his situation and the one pardon he is given; he may speak aloud in front of the camera. And so he invites his cameraman over and what proceeds is a documentary as expository as it is naturalistic. I recommend watching this film without knowing a thing about it as I did, for I was thus able to experience the refreshing voyeurism of ‘real-time’ observational documentary. “This is not a Film” because the Iranian legal authorities would not allow it to be but also because it is closer to an unadorned reflection of real life than an incisive creation.

To witness Jafar Panahi’s unquenchable passion for cinematic art as he wanders around recreating his banned script is delightful and inspiring. You sense his genius in the way he becomes a part of his imagined world and like a caged animal perseverates around looking for a way to find creative freedom within the confines of his apartment. The film was actually made over the course of a week and some of the scenes were sketched out but for the most part, I experience the film as an entertaining aggregate of serendipitous moments which convey the themes of entrapment by artifice, the struggle to sublimate such a thing and the beauty of the banal.

One of the most intriguing subjects in the documentary is a little yapping dog whose owner keeps trying to get the other residents in the building to look after him while she goes to see the fireworks. Panahi eventually rescinds the offer and gets on with his life. One might accuse me of being facetious when I make the connection that this bothersome little pup is like a little Jafar. It may not be the intention, but something about the dog’s pathetic rejection and his inability to leave the building without supervision made me feel ever more sympathetic for Jafar’s situation. It seems to me that Jafar is aligning his situation with the plight of an innocent dog. Jafar is not completely alone though; his comic Iguana keeps him company, distracting him and digging his claws into him as he climbs all over him. These comic breaks are but a refreshing element to an otherwise moody and pensive film.

This is Not a Film, was never approved by Iranian authorities but was actually smuggled out of Iran on a USB drive hidden inside a cake and then shown at the Cannes Film Festival. Part of the film’s appeal is undoubtedly in it’s illicitness and the thrill of the expository but for one who knows nothing of the film’s context can enjoy the jest of Jafar’s personality as he displays for us most accurately the banality of his entrapment and the beautiful genius mind of an auteur.