This Is Not A Film

Synopsis: Iranian filmmaker Jafar Panahi is under house arrest and waiting for the outcome of his appeal against his sentence: six years jail and a twenty year ban on filmmaking. His friend Mojtaba Mirtahmasb wants to make a documentary about what Iranian filmmakers who are prevented from making films do about it. Over the course of a day, we find out.

I am surprised to be sitting here writing this. I’ve never been able to sit through a Panahi film, indeed I’ve never been grabbed by Iranian cinema in general. But Panahi and Mirtahmasb’s “effort” (not a film) isn’t a film in the traditional sense. It’s an intelligent analysis of what constitutes filmmaking, and what doesn’t.

Initially, the “filmmaking” is “accidental”. Panahi’s son calls to apologise for leaving the camera on, telling his Dad to remember it’s there when he wakes up. But Panahi soon tires of the ruse and begins to address the camera directly rather than pretend he isn’t aware of being filmed. He talks about his past films, and the need to go beyond artifice to get at the real truth of a story. So his friend starts to film him and Panahi reveals his plan. His last script was rejected but while he’s banned from making films, he’s not banned from telling the story and acting it out to a fellow filmmaker who is not under such a prohibition. So he begins, showing us location scout footage to set the scene and describing in detail how he planned to film his script. But it breaks down, as does Panahi, as he realises that if it can be told, it doesn’t need to be filmed. The gap between description and depiction causes intense frustration for a man who is used to telling his stories silently and visually. He analyses scenes from his old films and they form a short schooling in the use of location and framing to communicate emotion, and of the advantages and pitfalls of using amateur actors. It’s fascinating stuff and his passion for filmmaking really holds you.

The day is punctuated by visits from neighbours and phone calls from his lawyer, family and well-wishers. The severity of his punishment is taking its toll, and finally he cannot take it any longer and picks up the camera himself. The final ten minutes is both triumphant and terrifying, as Panahi’s sentence was later confirmed with no reduction. The film itself was smuggled out of Iran on a flash drive. To say it’s not a film is both a sardonic guard against further punishment and a comment on the haphazard nature of what was produced, but it is a gut-wrenching portrait of a man denied part of his essential being, and the ways he tries to circumvent his situation to express himself.

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