No Bears [2022]

 Does a filmmaker really ever become a martyr at cinema’s altar? While such a statement may appear disingenuous and even pompous in most cases, not so for Jafar Panahi, who continues to undermine legal restrictions, defy punitive retributions and push boundaries. No Bears – the fifth film that he’s made since being banned from making movies, barred from leaving Iran and intermittently placed under house arrest, and completed just prior to being handed a fresh prison term on old charges – organically manifested and was powerfully informed by these extrinsic realities, thus coalescing political with personal. Suffused with bristling meta-commentary, rich self-reflexive aspects, moments of unsparing self-criticism, and tones that veered between ironic and bitter, the film was as much a brilliant and complex formal exercise as it was a bold and incisive use of cinema as an agency of subversion and dissidence. Panahi, once again playing a version of himself with self-effacing elan, is remotely directing a staged docudrama – about an Iranian couple, playing themselves, who’re trying to emigrate to France using fake passports, with the shoot taking place in Turkey – on account of being disallowed from making movies and leaving Iran. He’s stationed himself at a remote village on the country’s border in order to have proximity with his crew, while barely controlling the urge to cross the imaginary lines that separate the two countries. Meanwhile, courtesy his love for photographing locals, he becomes unwittingly embroiled in a sensitive situation upon being charged with capturing a couple in a forbidden relationship on camera. Both narrative strands escalated unpredictably and with tragic consequences, which Panahi navigated – as filmmaker, dissenter, observer, individual – with a wry blend of incredulity, resentment and melancholy.

Director: Jafar Panahi

Genre: Drama/Experimental Film

Language: Persian

Country: Iran