Review: This is Not a Film

Since his 2009 arrest at the site of a noted Iranian election protestor’s grave, cinephiles have intently followed the legal case of beloved director Jafar Panahi (The Circle, Offside), through his subsequent imprisonment and hunger strike, then his eventual house arrest and 20-year ban from filmmaking. Given the totalitarian nature of the Iranian government, there was no reason to believe we would have access to Panahi for that period of time, if ever again — his official sentence barred him from directing and writing films, as well as giving interviews. But keeping the man away from a camera was more difficult than his oppressors bargained for. Just five years after Panahi’s last movie, we now have This is Not a Film, a quasi-documentary shot entirely from the confines of Panahi’s apartment building and smuggled out of the country by flash drive.

The opening scenes of This is Not a Film are somewhat alarming, in that they do not adhere the conventional imagery of an oppressed individual. For all that he has been through, Panahi seems calm and collected as he eats his breakfast, talks with his lawyer on the phone, and babysits his daughter’s pet iguana. Soon enough, however, we realize that Panahi’s real agony lies in the fact that he is not able to do what he was meant to do: make films. While his collaborator Mojitaba Mirtahmasb mans the camera, Panahi describes in vivid detail what was supposed to be his next picture, even conducting line-readings from the script as he stands in a crudely taped blueprint of the protagonist’s home. These scenes are extended and gratingly monotonous, as well they should be — they perfectly depict Panahi’s inner-anguish that he was stripped of his artistic voice. He also reviews scenes from his past films and shares pieces of directorial wisdom, such as how to work with a non-actor as he did in 2003’s exceptional Crimson Gold, wherein the viewer further realizes just how much the man is defined by his craft.

But for as much as This is Not a Film depicts an individual robbed of his livelihood, it is also about his reclaiming it. While the piece technically respects the idea that Panahi cannot legally make films–in one scene, he tells Mirtahmasb to “Cut!”, to which Mirtahmasb reminds him that he cannot direct–Panahi isn’t about to allow a technicality from keeping him from his art. In the final minutes of the film, the filmmaker has an elevator-based chat with a peculiar young man who takes out the trash for the building. Aside from the style–Panahi plays documentarian, holding the camera and asking the man questions–this sequence is as compelling and socially substantive as anything he has ever done before. And the final shot, which I cannot give away in order to preserve its goosebump-inducing spontaneity, stands a bold statement of Panhi’s resistance.

This is Not a Film is obviously not for those unfamiliar with Panahi–not only do they lack the necessary context, but they wouldn’t get the same effect not having experienced the richness of the filmmaker’s past works–but it is absolutely essential for those who are. That said, everyone interested in cinema and/or Iran owes it to themselves to become familiar with an artist who, I can happily note, continues to be a major force in contemporary international cinema with This is Not a Film.

* * *

This is Not a Film (2012, Iran). Originally reviewed at the 2011 AFI Film Festival (11.8.2011). Produced by Jafar Panahi. Directed by Jafar Panahi and Mojtaba Mirtahmasb. Written by Jafar Panahi. Starring Jafar Panahi. Distributed by Palisades Tartan. Not rated, with a running time of 75 minutes.