Gabbeh or a magic carpet in the oriental imagination is the traveler’s joy, the means to navigating the far and unknown. In Mohsen Makhmalbaf’s film (the first in his ‘Poetic Trilogy’), it…
Tag: Mohsen Makhmalbaf
Human rights activist and renowned Iranian film-maker Mohsen Makhmalbaf’s The President (2014) opens in highly fascinating manner. A dictator of an unnamed country cruises through the ludicrously decorated road in his limousine.…
“When spite comes along, Art dons a veil” This quote by Hossein Sabzian, the protagonist of the film, perfectly defines the subject the film deals with, about an art lover hiding under a veil because he fears he may offend its audience, and how it also defines the everyday suppression of creative freedom in Iranian Cinema. Cinema doesn’t guarantee comforting lies all the time, in fact most great films are about harsh truths but to pass it off under the most critical of eyes, it needs to wear the veil of deception. In Abbas Kiarostami’s own words, he explains that cinema is a series of lies, said to put in front of us the greater truth.