海角大神

It鈥檚 a truism that those who are imprisoned are among the most likely to cherish freedom. I thought of this as I watched Iranian director Jafar Panahi鈥檚 鈥淣o Bears,鈥� which was filmed several months before he was sentenced in July 2022 to six years in prison for 鈥減ropaganda against the Islamic republic.鈥� He joins the fate of so many of his country鈥檚 artists and freethinkers.

This extraordinary film, which, despite its tragic trappings, is often surprisingly playful, can be appreciated聽without knowing anything about Panahi or his long-term battles with the authoritarian regime. Those battles have included a prohibition since 2010 to make movies or leave Iran. But knowing about his past and present ordeals increases the movie鈥檚 poignancy. Here is a director so committed to his art that he made a film in 2011 while under house arrest and smuggled it into the Cannes Film Festival reportedly聽on a USB drive concealed inside a cake.

In 鈥淣o Bears,鈥� as in a number of his other films, including 鈥�3 Faces鈥� and 鈥淭his Is Not A Film,鈥� Panahi is essentially playing a character very much like himself, with the same name. (To avoid confusion, I will refer to that character in this review within quotation marks as 鈥淧anahi.鈥�)

When the film opens in a Turkish town bordering Iran, we are thrust into an extended streetside argument between a couple (played by Bakhtiar Panjei and Mina Kavani) desperate to flee to France. Between them, however, they have only one forged passport. In contrast to director Panahi鈥檚 usual slow-going standards, this scene is practically a thrill ride. But it is soon revealed that the two people are actors. As the story progresses, though, it becomes clear that the filmed fictional drama they are enacting parallels their own lives. They are being directed remotely by 鈥淧anahi鈥� via video call, despite the bad Wi-Fi, from a nearby Iranian village where he has covertly taken up residence far from his native Tehran in order to make this movie.

But this hall-of-mirrors meta-dramaturgy never descends into airy artifice. Director Panahi is above all a humanist, and the film is graced with a feeling for the village and its people that goes way beyond the ethnographic. We see the women who pridefully ply him with their best traditional dishes. His young landlord, Ghanbar (Vahid Mobasheri), dotes on his famous tenant while also being somewhat suspicious of him. His neighbors are similarly both fascinated and wary. Their voyeuristic attentions parallel the authoritarian surveillance 鈥淧anahi鈥� is hiding from.

He is recognized as a prominent person, but his city ways and somewhat gruff sense of entitlement don鈥檛 impress the village elders. The director Panahi gives their ancient traditions and superstitions a dutiful, if highly skeptical hearing. When it transpires that 鈥淧anahi,鈥� in his wanderings about town, may have snapped an incriminating photo of illicit lovers, the elders mass against him.

They politely but firmly ask to see the photo which 鈥淧anahi鈥� claims, probably truthfully, he did not take. In the film鈥檚 centerpiece scene, he grudgingly agrees to take an oath on the Quran, in a makeshift 鈥淪wear Room鈥澛燼s prescribed by custom, that he did not shoot the photo. (Ghanbar聽tells him not to worry, that it鈥檚 acceptable to lie, just as he admits the rumor of bears roaming the Iranian-Turkish border is a lie to keep the villagers in place.)

The film-within-the-film that 鈥淧anahi鈥� is making, with its blighted lovers and yearning for deliverance, mimics the actions of the film itself. The elders鈥� dogmatic rituals and recriminations point up how both 鈥淧anahi鈥� and the director himself are regarded as criminals by those in positions of authority.

Perhaps what is most remarkable about 鈥淣o Bears鈥� is how, despite all this heavy-duty baggage, it nevertheless averts despair. The reason for this, I think, is because the director Panahi equates filmmaking, no matter the risks, with freedom. 鈥淭he hope of creating again,鈥� he has written, 鈥渋s a reason for existence.鈥�

Peter Rainer is the Monitor鈥檚 film critic. 鈥淣o Bears鈥� is unrated. It is available in select theaters.聽