No Bears (Khers nist)

 

Director Jafar Panahi

NO BEARS (Khers nist)        B                                                                                                     Iran  (106 mi)  2022  d: Jafar Panahi

I am not a part of society.  That obviously affects me and is something that I reflect on.  My personal experiences now play a much greater role in my work than society does.  In other words, my inspiration comes from my present circumstances and is then transferred into society, rather than being the other way around.  It is almost as if an entire society exists within me.

—Jafar Panahi interview with Ehsan Khoshbakht and Drew Todd, editors of the Jafar Panahi: Interviews, 2018, Jafar Panahi - Project MUSE

Surprise, surprise!  Another moral tale from Iran.  Jafar Panahi, Mohammad Rasoulof, and Mustafa Al-Ahmad have all been targeted film directors by this Iranian government regime, part of a broad crackdown on as many as 100 artists, repeatedly rounded up and arrested, while also serving jail time, as government censors still ban all foreign films as well as anything else deemed counter-revolutionary.  While some may believe that a persecuted artist in some way deserves a greater voice, elevating the importance of their work, as Panahi is not heard in his own country, where he has been effectively silenced by the Iranian government, his films banned, forbidden to make new films or travel out of the country, as he’s been on house arrest now for over a decade since 2010 for attending the funeral of Neda Agha-Soltan, the young Iranian woman killed during the 2009 Iran election protests, as he was accused of conspiring against the government by supporting the dissident unrest that followed the disputed 2009 re-election of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.  And while that may be true, this is a very cryptic film, told in code as it’s made illegally, where you have to read between the lines, as Panahi’s films negotiate the territory between an art striving for freedom and its imposed constraints, where the claustrophobic intensity feels like the walls are closing in, yet there’s a surprising amount of humor in what amounts to a very serious film, where it’s impossible to view this without constantly thinking about the current conditions in Iran and the possible fate of the director.  It also brings to mind the fate of Iranian freedom activist Narges Mohammadi, winner of the Nobel Prize in 2023 while imprisoned in her own country for defending women's rights, sentenced to 16 years for running “a human rights movement that campaigns for the abolition of the death penalty,” while also criticizing the regime’s use of torture and sexualized violence.  Not much actually happens in this film, as instead everything is implied, where there’s a dark cloud hanging over what we see, stuck in a no man’s land, suggesting ominous possibilities, yet there’s an unhurried, relaxed pace, told in a very evenhanded manner, blurring the lines between a documentary and a feature film.  The cultural aspects pit ancient traditions against modern sensibilities, where it’s not easy to navigate one’s way through this seemingly arcane experience filled with hidden minefields, where we’re continually looking backwards, unable or unwilling to face the future, or seek any kind of progress, as we’re caught in a web of unresolvable roadblocks that keep us stuck in the past, becoming an allegorical purgatory.  When Panahi began his career, he was considered among the more Westernized of the Iranian filmmakers, especially CRIMSON GOLD (2003), which has a more commercialized style to it, almost like a sophisticated thriller, the closest the director has come to making a genre film, with a prominent scene veering into the palatial opulence of Fellini’s NIGHTS OF CABIRIA (1957), even featuring a jazz soundtrack.  However, since his house arrest, with severe restrictions on his filmmaking, his style has become more minimalist, resembling the films of his compatriot Abbas Kiarostami, having worked as his assistant director in the 90’s, but his recent films are more straightforward, lacking the depth and poetic grace of Kiarostami, particularly the gorgeously visualized rural compositions, probably because they are made in secret on next to no budget, and have the feel of being made on the fly, eventually having to be smuggled out of the country, where this won a Special Jury Prize (3rd Place) at the 2022 Venice Film Festival.                   

From the maker of 3 Faces (Se rokh) (2018), this continues his neorealist exploration of the mountainous region of the West Azerbaijan Province and the remote rural communities where Panahi grew up, with the director playing a fictional film director who is banned from making films and leaving the country, moving to a remote village near the Turkish border where he rents a space where he can work with the help of his obliging host Ghanbar (Vahid Mobaseri) and his elderly mother.  Despite the rural isolation, seemingly in the middle of nowhere, Panahi’s presence unleashes a torrent of activity in this small community, as old grievances are suddenly catapulted to the forefront, where as a successful artist he’s expected to intervene and perhaps bring a calm rationality to these festering tensions.  Working remotely, communicating by phone, directing scenes taking place in neighboring Turkey through a livestream on his computer, he also faces unexpected difficulties by continually losing WiFi coverage, reminiscent of similar circumstances in Kiarostami’s THE WIND WILL CARRY US (1999), accentuating the consequences of human isolation, where this could just as easily have been entitled NO BORDERS, as the fate of different characters rests upon crossing that border, including the director, whose limits have been imposed by the state.  Added to that are the constant interruptions by unexpected visitors, each plagued by some unforeseen dilemma, which becomes a Marx Brothers comedy of errors, where it appears Panahi can never get any work done.  The fictionalized documentary style film he is making morphs into a realist film within a film, opening on a busy street in Turkey filled with street vendors and street musicians collecting money, with people seen sitting in a pub, as we follow an Iranian couple in forced exile, Zara (Mina Kavani), a waitress in a café, who sneaks out to meet her partner Bakhtiar (Bakhtiyar Panjeei).  Having acquired a stolen passport for Zara after ten years of waiting, both having been subject to arrests and abuse, including torture, Bakhtiar insists Zara go on ahead and flee to Europe, and he will join her later.  An emotional and confused Zara expresses her refusal to leave without Bakhtiar, just as the assistant director, Reza (Reza Heidari), yells “Cut!”  A film about the making of a film, where the storytelling is far from obvious, what initially stands out is how the illusion of filmmaking blends into a stark reality, as we discover Zara and Bakhtiar are in real life planning to escape to Paris using forged documents.  In a stunning turn of events, her tirade upon learning that her partner’s new life-saving passport is just a movie prop, is shocking, refusing to play a fake version of herself, angered at how this affects their real lives, as that deception ultimately drives her to despair.  The backdrop of the film is living in fear, as Iranian people are living in a police state, constantly subject to harassment and arrest by the Revolutionary guard, so the residents are afraid the government eyes on this big city director from Tehran will only draw attention to the black market smuggling operation taking place along the border, which is already under surveillance, as it’s entirely illegal, yet is how people in these rural, isolated areas have survived for years.  When villagers hear Panahi has driven to the top of the mountain for better reception, he inadvertently entered the heart of smuggler territory, drawing their ire, wondering what he’s up to while arousing their suspicions.  But on his return he’s met by a troubled young woman, Gozal (Darya Alei), who pleads with Panahi to help in covering up a photograph she believes he had taken of her and Solduz (Amir Davari), an expelled university student whose crime was participating in a demonstration.  Gozal is in love with Solduz, but was promised at birth to the reckless and hot-headed Jacob (Javad Siyahi), who is violently prepared to take matters into his own hands.  She implores him not to show the picture, as if he does, “there will be blood.”   

Without fully understanding the implications, Panahi is besieged by residents afterwards demanding the photograph as proof of an existing relationship between the lovers, accused by villagers of promoting the forbidden union, suddenly finding himself in the middle of a longstanding family feud, where antiquated customs seem to be fueling the desire to rid the town of unholy or unhealthy elements, with the villagers suggesting he’s holding incriminating evidence.  Even after giving them his camera’s memory card as proof he has no alleged photograph of the couple, they remain unconvinced, urging Panahi to go to their swearing room and swear to God that he did not take the picture of Gozal and Solduz together.  While expressing reservations about antiquated customs, Panahi requests to film his testimony, which unleashes of flood of resistance, with suggestions that those who control the images control the narrative.  While it’s hard to imagine a world where love is a crime, it soon becomes clear that while Panahi has problems with the authorities, the villagers remain in the thralls of tradition, believing in age-old rituals shrouded by superstitions, where it’s impossible to reason with their perceived slights, as they are offended by what he represents, an outsider (or “foreigner”) from the city disregarding their own customs.  One villager warns him about the danger of bears along the road, later acknowledging that these stories are concocted to fan the flames of fear, suggesting “our fears empower others.”  Just as fictitious stories are designed to frighten people about things that don’t actually exist, the tyrannical government also implements laws to terrorize its own citizens, where suffocating traditions only empower the reign of terror, as Iran is not a democracy, but a violently repressive autocratic Islamic power that has only become more fanatical, continuing to rely upon irrational religious customs, such as the naming of a husband at the time of birth in an arranged marriage, never allowing that grown-up woman the right to make her own choice.  Even in the remote villages, the struggles with patriarchal authority are as oppressive as in the city, revealing the sexist and misogynistic prejudices that date back centuries, which fly in the face of modernity, leaving women in a Kafkaesque predicament where only desperate acts, like leaving the country, offer any hint of a better life.  While the film is a subversive stab at the absurdity of religious dogma, these metaphorical tales can only go so far, as they themselves are figments of the imagination.  The film’s merging into social realism can feel disjointed trying to assemble its various parts, making it a difficult watch, delving into a world of untold tragedies in a very dark finale raising unanswerable questions.  However, there’s little emotional engagement, and the simplicity of the artistry can feel underwhelming, with little visual flair, especially when compared to other artists in similar positions, where the early works of Krzysztof Kieślowski come to mind, making powerful moral parables like Blind Chance (Przypadek) (1981) or NO END (1985), which were also banned.  In the large scheme of things, it’s questionable what influence this film has, feeling more like he’s preaching to the converted.  How do you create art that is interested in changing society when people are not interested in change?  Those who are living in freedom appreciate the effort, while those who are not will probably never see the film, so much like Kieślowski, history will be the ultimate judge.

Tori and Lokita (Tori et Lokita)

 

Directors Luc and Jean-Pierre Dardenne

TORI AND LOKITA (Tori et Lokita)                       B                                                         Belgium  France  (88 mi)  2022  d: Luc and Jean-Pierre Dardenne

The only thing worse than sex-trafficking, as depicted in Lukas Moodysson’s Lilya 4-Ever (Lilja 4-ever) (2003), is the human trafficking of immigrant refugees seeking a better life, who are surrounded only by vultures looking for a way to exploit their desperation, becoming a modern day slavery system, where in each case they’re valued only as human cargo worth dollar signs, viewed as subhuman, treated in the most despicable manner, where even the larger society around them perceives them as utterly worthless, as there’s a war being waged on refugees and immigrants worldwide.  It’s a sorry state of human affairs, and this plays out more like a horror film, a throwback to that caged-in feeling of ROSETTA (1999).  Ralph Ellison wrote about the invisibility of blacks in his breakthrough existential novel Invisible Man in 1952, but that same feeling applies to immigrants living on the margins in total darkness, unseen by the surrounding world that never give them a second thought, as they may as well not exist.  The Dardenne brothers are Belgium filmmakers who began their careers making documentaries about labor problems and social issues before turning to make feature films defined by their naturalistic aesthetic of social realism, yet their focus has always been on inequality in society and the sufferings of the poor.   This film looks at the plight of migrants in Europe, a theme also addressed in two recent Aki Kaurismäki films, Le Havre (2011) and The Other Side of Hope (Toivon tuolla puolen) (2017), where they seem to fall through the cracks, not really taken care of by the state, instead they are stuck in a desolate no man’s land territory, drawn into illegal activity to pay debts and send desperately needed money back home, subjects of prey from an omnipresent criminal element that exploits their precarious vulnerability.  Tori (Pablo Schils) and Lokita (Joely Mbundu) are two young African migrants in Belgium played by non-professionals.  Tori, who is about 11, is from Benin and has documents that allow him to stay in Belgium, but he lost his parents in the perilous journey to Europe where he met 16-year old Lokita, who was herself smuggled out of Cameroon so she could send money to her family back home.  They have developed an unwavering friendship, having only each other, as otherwise they are all alone in the world.  The utter absurdity of their situation is that Lokita is subject to deportation, and will only be allowed to stay if she can prove she is Tori’s sister, so the two of them rehearse their stories before the immigration authorities about where they’re from and how they lost their parents, but of course, they don’t have a single document to prove they are related.  When a DNA test is proposed, TORI AND LOKITA - EXCLUSIVE CLIP - YouTube  (1:31), they’ve run out of options, leaving only desperate alternatives.     

While there are other films on the subject told in a variety of styles, like Hubert Sauper’s We Come As Friends (2014), Wim Wenders’ documentary 2015 Top Ten List #4 The Salt of the Earth (2014), Jacques Audiard’s Dheepan (2015), or Joanna Kos-Krauze and Krzysztof Krauze’s Birds Are Singing in Kigali (Ptaki śpiewaja w Kigali) (2017), this one centers exclusively upon the character of the two young protagonists, as everyone else is a faceless entity, shot in the minimalist Dardenne style using a handheld camera from cinematographer Benoît Dervaux that casts an unflinching eye on their daily lives, scrutinizing the details of faces, gestures, and glances.  As the only blacks living in a sea of whites, they develop an intensely personal and profound friendship, allies in a struggle against brutal horrors, where they are exposed to a shady underworld of dangerous men who routinely take advantage of them.  Arguably the angriest Dardenne film, this pits the corrupted innocence of youth against the sociopathic indifference of adults who have no problem subjecting them to barbaric cruelty, accentuating the growing suffering in increasingly inhospitable settings, as it’s all about self-interest, where the tragic circumstances of these young lives are routinely overlooked, viewed as outcasts, where their lives are discarded in the blink of an eye, valued by an uncaring public as utterly worthless and inconsequential.  The struggle to stay alive is living under the pressure of constant threats, as everyone wants a piece of them, from the African gang that smuggled them out of Africa, continually terrorizing them for more money, to her family in Africa that needs more, to the Albanian criminal chef Betim (Alban Ukaj) who uses them to make his nightly drug deliveries.  Alternating between hope and fear, they make extra cash singing karaoke in the restaurant, Tori and Lokita / Tori et Lokita (2022) - Clip 1 (English subs) YouTube (51 seconds), while Lokita is also subjected to the humiliation of routine sexual assaults, where any payment received is viewed as a favor.  A very unpleasant watch, the traumatic and terrifying experience is even worse due to their young ages, yet what options do they have?  A devastating indictment of the immigration system and European democracy, as European countries have routinely shut their borders and doors, turning their backs on these young lives, utterly defenseless human beings who are preyed upon by criminals and lowlifes, a by-product of government cruelty and indifference.  Both happen to be extremely enterprising, where this is a story of an unbreakable friendship, putting a human face on meaningless numbers and statistics, where waves of migrants have been subjected to extreme violence and death, treated in the most inhumane and despicable manner, surrounded only by grim possibilities.     

The impetus for the story were newspaper articles the directors read about how many unaccompanied migrant children come on their own, with no parents, disappearing from emergency shelters and housing groups without a trace, exposing the extreme solitude that they live through, and the illnesses that result from their isolation from their families, concluding that they were falling into a crime and drug network, leading to tortures, and even assassinations of young teenagers, with so many of them ending up dead.  Unlike other Dardenne films, this one actually veers into thriller territory when Lokita is separated from her friend for three months and locked up as a prisoner in a dingy industrial warehouse that houses a secret illegal cannabis operation, framed as a high risk experience in order to receive forged documents, her phone taken from her so she can have no contact with the outside world, with food delivered once weekly, as she is given detailed instructions on how to properly care for these plants, where the irony is the plants are treated so much better than she is.  Distressed and alone, exacerbated by her growing sense of isolation, cut off from everything she knows, she is consumed by loneliness, deeply missing the companionship of her friend, at one point turning off the TV and simply staring at his image.  Tori feels the same way, with Betim expanding his role in running all his drug routes, an inconceivable job for such a young kid, where it’s easy to be taken advantage of on both ends, from the buyer and the seller, forcing Tori to hatch a plan, where the guts and sheer originality to carry off such an outlandish effort defies credibility, yet it’s driven by something we come to understand, as their loyalty and devotion to each other is unmistakable.  While their loving spirit should be rewarded and appreciated, the hardened Mafiosi men they’re dealing with have no interest in sentimentalities, as they’re void of any feelings whatsoever, where money is all that matters to them, a subject that was briefly touched upon in The Unknown Girl (La Fille Inconnue) (2016).  Despite keeping such a low profile, these two are living targets at every stage, having to endure moving from conflict to conflict, where the trials they face are staggering, with no friends or allies anywhere, only enemies who want to use them for their own unscrupulous schemes, while they stay safely in the background, using kids to carry out their criminal enterprise.  Descendants of European immigrants never had it easy, but they could find work and eventually become citizens.  That is not the case with Third World migrants of today in Europe, as they’re simply not offered the same opportunities, where the harrowing abuses of black working refugees in Western Europe are well documented (Are your tinned tomatoes picked by slave labour? | Italy, or Thousands of refugees and migrants suffer extreme rights ...), often living in close quarters packed inside small concrete huts covered with corrugated sheets, where the role of organized crime has only increased.  As a result, their lives are more likely to be short and tragic.  The Dardennes have created a moral drama that rages against social injustice, but its minimalist simplicity undermines any developing complexity, operating more on an emotional level, where viewers can identify with what’s happening to our struggling combatants and loathe the system that ignores their needs, but voters in countries around the world are increasingly growing fearful and following step in a lethal combination of xenophobia and nationalism, turning inward, thinking only of their own, vociferously rejecting outsiders like an invading plague.