Iranian cinema is traditionally strong in the Cannes competition. Almost 30 years ago, Abbas Kiarostami won the Palme d'Or here with ‘The Taste of Cherries’ (1997). This year, two Iranian films were invited to the competition, both of which made a strong impression.
Despite the fact that he was sentenced to six years in prison and banned from working for 20 years in 2010 for ‘propaganda against the regime’, Jafar Panahi, a former assistant to Kiarostami, continued to be visible at foreign festivals. With ‘Taxi Tehran’ (2015) he even won the Golden Bear in Berlin. Panahi's films were secretly shot home movies, which he made at his house, in his car or in remote areas and smuggled abroad under adventurous circumstances. Now the sentence against Panahi has been cancelled, he is allowed to travel again and was able to come to Cannes with his wife and daughter.
His film ‘It Was Just an Accident’ is an uncompromising political statement. The car mechanic Vahid believes he recognises the person who tortured him in prison and destroyed his life in a customer who comes to his workshop after an accident with a dog. Eghbal, the torturer in prison, had a wooden leg, just like the customer. Vahid kidnaps him and wants to bury him alive, but his victim insists that he is mistaken. Vahid finally makes contact with former fellow prisoners. An absurd odyssey begins, in which they are until the end not sure whether they have found the right person.
Panahi's film was shot without official permission, the actresses do not wear headscarves and the political repression and torture are openly addressed. However, the film suffers from a dialogue-heavy script, which makes it hard to follow when reading the subtitles. The visual symbolism is sometimes too explicit when for example the desert landscape with a barren tree in which Vahid wants to bury his kidnap victim is too reminiscent of the iconic stage sets of Samuel Beckett's ‘Waiting for Godot’.
In contrast, ‘Woman and Child’ by Saeed Roustaee is more poetic and dramatic. He was already invited to the Cannes competition two years ago with ‘Leila's Brothers’. Back then, he got into trouble in Iran because he had shown his film in Cannes without permission. After the festival, Roustaee and his producer were found guilty by an Iranian court of ‘opposition propaganda against the Islamic system’. Roustaee was sentenced to nine days in prison, with the remainder of the sentence suspended. Roustaee shot his new film ‘Woman and Child’ with official permission. In all scenes, the women wear the mandatory hijab.
The 45-year-old widowed nurse Mahnaz (Parinaz Izadyar) is in a relationship with Hamid (Payman Maadi), an ambulance driver who charges his patients inflated rates. He is eager to get married, but she is hesitant and doesn't know whether she can trust him. Rightly so, as it turns out. Because when he is supposed to ask her mother for her hand in marriage, he suddenly decides in favour of her sister Mehri (Soha Niasti), who is 20 years younger. When Mahnaz's son Aliyar (Sinan Mohebi) dies, Mahnaz freaks out. She talks of murder and blames her father-in-law and the school that kicked him out. The 14-year-old Aliyar, whom we saw as a bully who behaved impossibly at school, is posthumously glorified by his mother as an innocent son.
Saeed Roustaee develops an intense family dynamic that escalates in dramatic discussions. The women take centre stage, while the men, such as Hamid or the old father-in-law, turn out to be morally dubious figures. At the same time, we learn a lot about the social conditions in the big city of Tehran, the healthcare system and the legal system.
The lawyer that Mahnaz engages is dressed in a modern way with a tie, no longer in the traditional stand-up collar shirt of the Islamic Republic. On the red carpet, the actresses appeared extremely elegant and of course did not wear a hijab. The protagonist Parinaz Izadyar delivered a magnificent performance and is probably one of the favourites for the Actress Award. Peyman Maadi, who was honoured in Berlin for ‘Nader and Simin - A Separation’ (2011), plays a charming macho with a dark side.