Vivek's Info

Iranian movies are wonderful in bringing out the drama in real life. Movies such as Kelid, The day I became a woman, Children of heaven and many others have daringly bold scripts and are completely out of the box. Others like Baran, Two women, etc. have the flavour of many Indian movies – but have a dramatic theme. What I like most about Iranians is their ability to get the best out of children. In fact, most of the movies revolve around children. The direction of these movies is so good that one does not even get to realise that the children have actually “acted”. It almost feels like these were videos shot as children were going about their lives in the normal course of things.

I also find the theme of most Iranian movies quite empowering – most of them have a positive touch – though many challenge oppressive traditions. Most movies I have seen have a touch of humanism and most actors are portrayed in a positive light – clearly, there are exceptions. In stark contrast to the image of Iranian women in the western world, women in these movies are dynamic and creative. The stories manage to do this as well as highlight the oppressive conditions in which many of them live.  My favourite on this account is The Day I became a woman.

Iran’s ability to produce such beautiful movies is quite a wonder given the difficult administrative circumstances that the directors work in.  All the movie equipment in Iran is owned by the government – which means tremendous control by the government on the movie industry. Further, directors are rated on their movies and those with bad ratings can be barred from making movies for several years.  Apart from the harshness of this setup, it is quite likely that the directors have to spend a lot of their creative energies in distasteful administraive issues. 

I have listed below some of my favourite Iranian movies.  These movies deserve detailed review that I’ll try in the near future.  I’ll link them to good reviews when possible. For the moment, I’ll leave you with a list of movies.

List of movies

1. Colour of Paradise (review)
2. Children of heaven (review)
3. Kelid
4. Two women
5. The day I became a woman
6. Once upon a time cinema
7. Bashu the little stranger
8. Ayneh
9. Leila
10. Gaav

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