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.

Bisbee '17

coal miners prior to child labor laws, 1911

Director Robert Greene

BISBEE ’17                B                    

USA  (112 mi)  2018  d:  Robert Greene

Cities that are haunted … seem to straddle past and present as though two versions of the same city are overlaid on top of each other.

―Colin Dickey, Ghostland, 2016

Despite near unanimous positive reviews, this is not an altogether engaging film, more abstract and intellectual than emotionally driven, feeling repetitive and muddled throughout by minor details, falling victim to its own stylistic deficiencies, where memory is not always the best purveyor of truth, suggesting history is written by the victors.  Ordinary citizens are called upon to recreate a traumatic event from their town’s storied past, but much like restaging Civil War battles doesn’t actually get at the heart of what caused the Civil War, here the present is used to comment upon a specific event in the past, still leaving plenty of questions unanswered.  Recalling the troubles with Joshua Oppenheimer’s The Act of Killing (2012), where the perpetrators of mass genocide were given a cinematic opportunity to restage how they did it, given a platform to celebrate what they viewed historically as a tremendous victory, yet when seen onscreen without all the political hyperbole and bias, it was viewed as little more than mass murder.  Suddenly their so-called victory, which is how the history books portrayed their actions, was seen in a completely different light.  At the outset of this film, a brief explanation of what happened here 100 years ago in the tiny border town of Bisbee, Arizona scrolls down the screen, recalling a specific event that seems unthinkable today, yet surprisingly similar tactics are being used round the clock today on a daily basis, rounding up illegal immigrants, some who have been here for decades.  Surrounding the town are gigantic dirt pits, which remain a constant eyesore, home of what was some of the most profitable copper mining pits in America, where Phelps Dodge was a goliath in the industry, driven by huge profits for a stockpile of munitions needed during the war effort of WWI, making Bisbee one of the wealthiest towns in the entire state.  But capitalism is driven by cheap labor, where most of the miners were Mexican or Slavic-European immigrants, paid a pittance in wages, forced to endure hazardous working conditions fraught with life-threatening safety concerns that were routinely overlooked by the company.  Mind you, at that time, child labor in the mines was not only an acceptable but a routine practice, as just a year earlier in 1916 Congress passed the Keating-Owen Act which prohibited interstate shipment of goods made by children under age fourteen, but the next decade underwent a series of court challenges, so child labor wasn’t actually abolished until the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938.  Instrumental in bringing about that change was the intervention of unions (also lawsuits from catastrophic accidents and deaths), which challenged the sole authority of the companies.  In Bisbee, the miners were organized by the IWW (Industrial Workers of the World), which submitted a list of demands, which included fair treatment of Mexican and European immigrant workers who were routinely given lower paying jobs than American whites (paid twice as much), kept in racially segregated copper camps and company towns, not even paid in U.S. currency, but company coupons redeemable only at the overpriced company store, yet all demands were angrily and vehemently denied, resulting in a strike.  Caught up in the patriotic fervor of the war effort, this was viewed as un-American and an affront to all decent citizens, rounding up all the miners on July 12, 1917, including friends and supporters, rousting them out of bed in an early morning sting operation conducted by a horde of deputies, herding nearly 1200 of them into a gated baseball diamond with as many as 50 snipers posted along the roofs en route before forcing them at gunpoint onto train cattle cars where they were dropped off and abandoned in a sweltering desert in the middle of New Mexico with no food, water, or shelter, actions that are mirrored today in rounding up undocumented families that are herded into caged tent villages at gunpoint (often separating children from their parents), before they can be deported out of the country, many still without their children.

What’s perhaps so striking about this historical incident is that the town is still defined by its abhorrent acts of the past.  In one family a brother arrested his own brother who worked in the mines, permanently exiling him from the community, and more importantly, from his own family, where it remains a town divided, torn by what happened on both sides, still trying to fathom the impact 100 years later.  Since the closing of the last copper mine in 1975, Bisbee has become a ghost town, virtually uninhabited, now one of the poorest towns in the state where population records show about 5000 residents remain, down from 25,000 in 1910, including many transplants from other regions.  One of the director’s goals was to film the town’s reenactment of what happened, believing this would identify key elements of the turmoil that still exist today, with everyday citizens playing a part, which has the effect of deflating any elevated emotional impact, as few characters are developed or can hold a camera, instead most are one-dimensional recreations that aren’t remotely convincing in the roles, leaving much to be desired.  Because what ultimately happened is announced at the outset, there’s little tension or built-up dramatic suspense, instead the story is told in six chapters, never really addressing how people can actually defend the town’s actions, as many do, other than to suggest the entire town of Bisbee was a company town indoctrinated by the company line, which still exists today.  Citizens were actually sold by exaggerated claims that the IWW (aka Wobblies, whose slogan was One Big Union!), represented a threat to their lives, capable of instilling violence, including blowing up the mines, believing the town would erupt in a bloody confrontation, which they then used as an emergency excuse to usurp the law, taking matters into their own hands with a vigilante lynch-mob mentality, cutting the telegraph lines so news could not get out to the rest of the world, supposedly preventing violence by enforcing acts even more monstrously violent, where the cattle cars themselves are a silent remembrance of the Holocaust to anyone watching these events today.  Underlying these actions are the irrational concerns of a mob mentality, which include deeply held racists views, as Bisbee was known as a “White Man’s Camp,” subject to believing in paranoid conspiracies, where otherwise peaceful and law-abiding citizens were suspected of outrageous criminal behavior, with no evidence provided, where the anti-American sentiment was really packaged hatred, finding the opposition as the enemy and then demonizing them as subhuman, which justifies the subhuman treatment of them.  In contrast, one of the Mexican-American citizens portraying a striking miner, Fernando Serrano, sings Solidarity Forever in Spanish to the tune of the Battle Hymn of the Republic alone in front of a mirror.  The company and their powerful agents, the sheriff along with 2200 sworn deputies known as the Loyalty League armed with rifles, wearing white armbands to distinguish them from the miners, frame the confrontation as bringing law and order to a group of rabble-rousers who are threatening their American way of life (as the IWW took a position against the war), yet they and they alone acted unlawfully, ignoring all laws and constitutional rights, behaving like a fascist dictatorship, never held accountable for their actions in subsequent legal challenges, where much of this remained a dirty secret known only by those who perpetrated the acts themselves.  Most of the people who were rounded up that day were not socialists or bomb-throwing radicals, but their crime was simply standing up for fair wages and better working conditions.   

Bringing this to the light of day is not only laudable, but serves as a mirror for similar action taking place today in the name of the government, where the word “deportation” holds a special place for border residents, who still hold much of the vehement racist resentment directed against those who would enter the country illegally, despite the horrors they may be running from, seeking only a better life for their family, yet they are tainted with a broad brush of xenophobic prejudice and white superiority, which even affects those Mexican-Americans living in Bisbee who feel they are somehow better and don’t wish to be associated with poverty and a developing underclass, especially after they’ve worked their way to respectability.  Still among the better films on the subject remains Chantal Akerman’s From the Other Side (De l’autre côté) (2002), as the lines of division couldn’t be more clearly defined, with people believing they are patriots to want to drive this undesirable element out, again framing their beliefs behind the American flag, using law and order guidelines.  They love the law when it works for them, but they’re not about to sympathize with anyone who feels differently than they do, still calling them vermin and outside agitators that need to be eradicated, just like they did 100 years ago.  Despite the reenactment and the obvious revelations that this was a horrible thing to do to anyone, no matter who they were, there are still plenty in denial who hide behind the idea of bringing order to the community, thinking otherwise it was a powder keg about to explode, completely ignoring the fact that these were heinous acts of brutal violence, with two shot to death when attempting to resist the arrests (a striker and a deputy), with the sheriff and his appointed deputies blatantly violating the law, yet no one was held accountable.  What’s missing from the film are some of the unique historical details, like Arizona had only been a state for five years, with officials still used to taking care of problems themselves, while the strike also took place while Mexican independence was being fought for during the Mexican Revolution (1910 – 1920), while the Russian Revolution (1917), which inspired the IWW leaders, was also happening at the exact same time.  Significantly, there was a similar deportation of IWW strikers in Jerome, Arizona just a few days earlier, though on a much smaller scale, transporting 75 men in cattle cars more than 150 miles to Kingman, with armed threats never to return.  Other missing items include Bisbee authorities placing armed guards on all roads leading into town afterwards to insure that none of those deported could return and also to prevent any new troublemakers from arriving, or that the local Bisbee newspaper was owned by the major mining company, Phelps Dodge, which labeled the strikers as “agitators, idlers, wreckers, traitors, spies and anarchists,” or that the boxcars were lined with manure several inches deep, or most importantly what happened to the entire group afterwards, as viewers watching the film will likely assume they all perished, as it happened in mid-July with temperatures soaring well over 110 degrees, where it is implied that they were left to die.  Actually the train was not welcomed in Columbus, New Mexico, their initial destination, so they were dropped off 200 miles away in the open desert of Hermanas, New Mexico.  A later train brought food, rations, and water, but they were completely without shelter for two days until U.S. troops arrived, escorting them to holding facilities in Columbus, where they remained for many months, but were not allowed back to their homes in Bisbee.  Only a handful ever returned, as some did a decade later under assumed identities.  President Woodrow Wilson set up a commission to investigate the Bisbee Deportation, but determined no federal law applied, referring the matter back to the State of Arizona, who found the mining companies at fault, but took no action against them.  300 deportees brought lawsuits against the companies, but none went to trial, as all were settled out of court.  Suits were also filed against the actions of the sheriff and over 200 vigilantes, but the only case going to trial ended with a not guilty verdict, while all the other cases were dismissed.