Wonderland Matrix

Argo: looking at the history to move forward

[Iranian] people respect all the cultures and civilizations and despise hostility and resentment’

Asqar Farhadi

While the White House is preoccupied with Iranian nuclear threat and the European Union continues to impose all kinds of sanctions the Academy Award for the first time in history officially acknowledges the beauty and depth of Iranian cinema by giving Asqar Farhadi the best foreign film award for ‘Separation’. Perfect timing! And though both the Academy and A.Farhadi point out that they strive to brush off the ‘political dust’ from the works of art and see beyond political matters I don’t think it’s really so.

Is the cinema indeed that agnostic about politics? For the past decade different filmmakers approached Iranian topic from different angles – they all tried to conjure up an idea of Iran which is hard for a country as alienated as this one. This year in continuation to Iranian theme Ben Affleck presents his work Argo. When I’ve lined up this movie with the other movies about Iran made in the US such as ‘300’ and ‘The stoning of Soraya M’ ‘Argo’ clearly stood out for me. Coincidences aside – Michelle Obama announces the best picture winner this year and it happens to be ‘Argo’. I can see a political stance behind it (laugh at me if you want, again perfect timing for the movie to come out and to get the highest cinematic award in the United States).

Seems like the movie has it all. It’s funny, it has a historical background, a lot of action and suspense, celebrated actors as well – it makes up a Hollywood success. Let’s dig a bit deeper. First things first, this film is not a documentary and for that reason exaggerates some facts though it aspires to portray the reality (that’s why the actual photographs are shown at the end of the movie). Secondly, Iranian hostage crisis still is a huge wound on Iranian-American relations that won’t heal, it set its boundaries and limitations. It was shocking, unexpected, brutal… The United States was stabbed in the back, the trust was broken, and the bound between the two countries was cut. During the crisis and after it Iranians living in the US unwillingly became ‘criminals’ and were discriminated against. Many of them were afraid to reveal their national identity saying they were Turkish or somebody else.

The movie makes us feel the American tragedy with all our body, we want to escape from Iran of that time, break free from the regime.

But what about the natives? The ones that didn’t have the opportunity to escape? The wheel of revolution in any country when set to motion can’t really be stopped eradicating anyone who happens to be in its way. The grim grip of the Iranian Revolution wasn’t looser on the Iranians but the film doesn’t touch upon this part. At the beginning we see a cartoonish version of Iranian revolution that reminded me of Marjane Satrapi’s Persepolis. May be it was the right way to go: that’s may be how it all appeared from a distance.

That distance again, not only in time and space but also in perception.

Accepting his award, Ben Affleck thanked Iranian people who as he put it ‘are living in terrible circumstances right now’. The good news is the US is trying to show Iranian people their support through cinema. I hope I haven’t misinterpreted the message which to my mind is:”we are open and we want to understand”. I’d like to think that revisiting the story of the hostage crisis will help the US to move forward.