In December 2010, Iranian filmmaker Jafar Panahi, one of the leaders of the Iranian New Wave, was sentenced to six years in prison and a 20-year ban on making films, writing screenplays or doing interviews. He was accused of colluding with others to make propaganda detrimental to the Iranian regime after being arrested at the grave of Neda Agha-Soltan, the woman who became famous for being killed on camera during the 2009 Green Revolution.
In 2011, locked in his apartment awaiting a decision from the appeals court, Panahi, along with friend and documentarian Mojtaba Mirtahmasb, shot a near-documentary, near-diary piece about a day in his life. The clever title, This is Not a Film, refers to his court-ordered ban on making films, but also raises a semantic dilemma about what exactly this is that we are watching. It's not really a film in a traditional sense that there is a particular plot of story that is being worked through; it is not a documentary about anything in particular, because Panahi's actions on this day are rather banal and not particularly intersting (he could leave his house, he's not in jail yet; he is making a movie of some form).
At first Panahi reads the script that would have been his next film, were he allowed to make it. Much like the neorealist content of his other works, this one deals with a woman in college. He puts tape on the floor of his massive and seemingly rich apartment to delineate her bedroom and rearranges the furniture to suggest the setting. As he begins to read from the text (he jokes that there was no ban on reading a script, so he's not violating the ruling), he stops to talk about the art of directing and the small details of working with non-actors, as he does in most of his films. He pulls out DVDs of his past films to show what he means. He begins to break down, as he realizes he cannot do this again for the foreseeable future.
This non-film proceeds and gets into a meta-discussion between Panahi and Mirtahmasb about the nature of documentaries and representation. It leaves us wondering how much of this is scripted and how much is natural. It seems totally natural, though Panahi's wife and daughter are curiously absent for the 12 or so hours the cameras are rolling (apparently if they were home they would have to wear a chador to obey the law, however women in Iran do not wear chadors in their homes; as a way around this obvious violation of law or naturalness, Panahi sends his family out of the house for the day).
This is a very nice, very clever film that not only raises post-modern issues of representation and perceived reality, but also functions as a sly attack on the monstrosity of the Iranian regime. Smuggled out of the country on a USB drive, it's amazing to me that this wouldn't be a violation of Panahi's sentence -- although it might follow the letter of the ruling, it seems to violate it at every turn and stick a thumb in the eye of the authority.
As interesting as the film is, it does lose some steam by the end, with the last 15 minutes a return to every-day life. I'm sure this is just a view into the mundaneness of life, though it feels like it's unrelated to the rest of the film and doesn't totally have any point (we see Panahi talking to the brother of the super of his building as he takes out the garbage). As much as I like the philosophical discussions that proceed this, I find this curiously boring, waiting for some greater connection to something of significance.
This is definitely a good film and possibly an important one, but it feels more like collection of scattered thoughts more than an effective essay of any sort. It is a handful of video journal entries, almost all of which are fascinating, but don't totally hold together well, as stream of consciousness frequently is wont to do. I like how this fits into the sharp naturalness of Panahi's previous work, and I think in the long run it will act as an important milestone, it just feels a bit less cohesive than it should.
Stars: 2.5 of 4
