MOVIE REVIEW
Closed Curtain (2013)
57th BFI London Film Festival
Most people reading this will be aware of the backstory by now: Director Jafar Panahi has been under house arrest and banned from filmmaking since 2010 for supposedly inciting insurrectionary activities in Iran. “Closed Curtain” is the second film he’s managed to direct while under house arrest (with the collaboration of Kambuzia Partovi) and again managed to miraculously smuggle out of Iran for the benefit of international audiences.
The first one was “This Is Not a Film” (made with a different co-director, Mojtaba Mirtahmasb), and the early opinion on “Closed Curtain” seems to be that Mr. Panahi’s second attempt isn’t as interesting as the first. The novelty has worn off! The fact that such a fascinating film could be taken for granted in such a way suggests much about the impossibly high standards to which Iranian cinema is now held. We all, after all, have our expectations from Iranian cinema, which include in no particular order: the intermingling of documentary and narrative and resulting metatextual complexity, bold Brechtian devices, startlingly feminist viewpoints, sensational performances from amateur child actors, closeted allegories about Iranian society, submerged critiques of the ruling clerical elite and — if possible — all of the above conveyed with an unusual degree of heart, warmth and universality.