I wanted to do another post on this because I don't want to give the impression that the Israelis' national conscience is somehow unique. In college, I had the opportunity to take an Iranian film class. The filmmaker who most affected me was Mohsen Makhmalbaf, who made a film called Marriage of the Blessed. Makhmalbaf did time in prison for killing a police officer under the Shah's regime during the revolution, a history that gives him an enormous amount of credibility as an artist, and an ability to get away with things other directors can't.
Marriage of the Blessed is a film about an Iranian veteran of the Iran-Iraq war who suffers from post-traumatic stress syndrome. Returning from war, he takes up being a journalist. He rides around Tehran on a motorcyle, with his wife in a sidecar next to him. They are partners, as much partners as they can be in a society that legalizes the oppression of women. One night, they are stopped by the Iranian police, who attempt to take their camera. At this moment, the camera pulls back to reveal Makhmalbaf in a director's chair and an entire set of film equipment. Makhmalbaf calmly explains to the police that they are just making a movie. The police seem skeptical, but eventually back off. Makhmalbaf hasn't as much broken the fourth wall as he has climbed over it, leaving it intact.
This moment is more than a critique of censorship or sexism. It is Makhmalbaf expressing frustration with the fruits of the revolution he gave several years of his life to, as well as that of another human being.
Marriage of the Blessed is not available on DVD, and was not distributed in the U.S., although I believe you could find a copy somewhere if you looked. My professor secured a copy while she was in Iran. Already few Americans get to see moments like this, the kind of national ambivalence expressed through art that makes it so precious. What is so repellent about Shapiro's post is how little value he sees in human beings coping honestly with their contradictions. To Shapiro, art only has value to the degree that it reinforces official acts of brutality undertaken by the state. Art is strong precisely when it is not an organized expression of political beliefs. It is best as an uncensored exchange between our divided selves, which will at some point lead to those official acts undertaken in our name if not on our behalf.
That moment in Makhmalbaf's film, and his popularity in Iran hint at the mixed feelings Iranians hold towards their own government. It's a side of Iran we rarely see, but that doesn't mean it doesn't exist.
-- A. Serwer
