Director Jafar Panahi, right, plays himself in the low-key drama.
A government-imposed ban usually brings an end to an artist’s career. But filmmaker Jafar Panahi has become a darling of the international film festival circuit since the Iranian government sentenced him in 2010 to a 20-year ban on directing films. This is Not a Film was smuggled out in 2011. Since then, Taxi (2015) won the Golden Bear at the Berlin Film Festival, and Panahi’s latest, 3 Faces, shared the Best Screenplay prize at the Cannes Film Festival.
3 Faces begins with a young girl from a conservative rural village making a cell phone recording of herself. Marziyeh (Marziyeh Rezaei) appears to have attempted suicide because her family prohibited her from becoming an actress. Marziyeh addresses her video to a well-known Iranian television actress, Behnaz Jafari (who plays a version of herself). When the video reaches Jafari through her friend, director Panahi (playing himself), Jafari insists that Panahi drive her to the village to find out if the girl did, in fact, commit suicide.
Panahi stylistically picks up where Taxi left off. In that film, the dramatic action was limited to spaces in and around cars and vehicles. At first, similar self-imposed restrictions don’t work very well. The opening cell phone walk-and-talk confessional seems implausible and lacks dramatic impact. And a vehicular long take with Jafari and Panahi at first plays out like a pretentious variation of what made Taxi so intriguing and lively. But the film’s style and tone loosen up significantly when the actor and director reach the village, making the low-key drama far more compelling.
Panahi’s stylistic flourishes work much better as he integrates them into the scenes, rather than imposing them arbitrarily on the situation. A shot that echoes the opening long take follows Jafari as she walks behind a car. The staging of this seemingly simple shot becomes a subtle game of conceal and reveal, as Jafari lights up to smoke, but we never see the cigarette itself. What women are allowed to reveal, or allowed to be, develops as a central theme.
That theme in the film recalls Panahi’s pre-ban film Offside (2006), which followed young Iranian women attempting to enter a World Cup qualifying soccer match. But the loose narrative also allows for observations about class and privilege, as Panahi explores the social disconnect between the urban and rural characters.
Working under and around the conditions of the ban (he is also prohibited from traveling abroad), Panahi has re-established himself as a relaxed, observant filmmaker. 3 Faces works best when his observations are more important than his style.
Unfortunately, Madison moviegoers suffer from lack of opportunities to see award-winning films like 3 Faces. The film has one screening on Nov. 28 as part of the Madison Museum of Contemporary Art’s Spotlight Cinema series.
