Narrowing the Focus
Since returning from Jerusalem a couple of weeks ago now, I’ve had the chance to digest the film recommendations and other insights I gleaned on the trip. I’ve also had opportunities to discuss my research with friends and colleagues, the result of which is a better sense of how I might design a coherent, cohesive course on such a complex, complicated matter as political cinema in Israel/Palestine and Iran. Two themes have emerged in these recent contemplations and conversations.
1. THE STATESIDE PIECE
I don’t, as yet, have any films in mind that articulate in any substantial way the historical relationships of the U.S.A. with Israel/Palestine and Iran. This came to my attention when I was still in Jerusalem, lingering at the Begin Center. In the center lobby hangs a poster-size photo essay of the historic Camp David Accords of 1978, an episode I remember only vaguely from my teens. Upon my return to my office in Burlington, I rustled up my VHS copy of The Fifty Years War, a pretty good PBS documentary on the entire regional conflict between Israel and its Arab neighbors, which covers this period of the late 1970s in some detail.
So, now I wonder, where are the narrative films—the fictional films—that tell stories of this period and other watershed moments in the relationships that now exist between my country and those under investigation? Where, for example, are the narrative films that illuminate the period around the U.S. hostage crisis in Iran? They're out there. I just have to keep searching.
Okay, I'm just going to say it. I'd show a class 2007's Persepolis and feel good about it. This animated film, adapted by writers Vincent Paronnaud and Marjane Satrapi from Satrapi's graphic novel Persepolis: The Story of a Childhood, actually does a pretty good job of describing, in broad strokes, the Islamic revolution in Iran in 1979. In essence a coming-of-age story, the film also offers a look at the impact of Islamic law in people's daily lives. Sure, Persepolis is a cartoon in the literal sense, but students who see this film will nevertheless find that its depictions of Iranian life reverberate in other films from and about Iran, narrative films and documentaries alike.
Paronnaud and Satrapi
2. LESS IS MORE
I’ve lately been mulling over the way some films use an intimate, even confined, setting to articulate broad, universal issues. I should credit colleagues Eric Ronis and Kelly Thomas here, as we shared the Alumni Auditorium the other day during a workshop session for Eric’s upcoming one-man show, Things I’m Not Supposed to Say. Even with only one other audience member present (Kelly), I felt that sense of complicity in the events unfolding on stage that I’ve come to expect from live theater—to a greater degree than from any other form, even cinema. I was reminded after Eric’s rehearsal that my contacts in Israel had mentioned several films that illuminate broad political issues through a lens focused narrowly on a single location.
2008 — Waltz with Bashir
By Writer-Director Ari Folman
The whole film takes place in a bar; although, through flashbacks, the story ventures to other scenes.
1997 — Taste of Cherry (in Farsi, Ta'm e guilass)
By Writer-Director Abbas Kiarostami
While I don’t anticipate screening this film in my class, I’ll make it available to students to view on their own. The entire film takes place inside a car—talk about close quarters—driven by a man looking for someone to help him commit suicide.
1992 — Life According to Aqva (in Hebrew, Chayim Al-Pi Agfa, Ha-)
By Writer-Director Assi Dayan (son of the Israeli war hero and former Foreign Minister Moshe Dayan)
Again, the entire film takes place in a bar through which walks an assortment of characters representing Israel’s diverse population.
Moshe Dayan (1915-1981)
1984 — Beyond the Walls (In Hebrew, Me'Ahorei Hasoragim)
By Director Uri Barbash
This film takes place entirely in a prison where inmates are forced to deal with one another. Uri Klein, film critic with Ha’Aretz newspaper, praised the way the simple, basic, stripped-down qualities of this setting and story lay bare the complexities of getting along.
