Tres rostros

"3 Faces" (2018 release from Iran; 100 min.) brings the story of Behnaz Jafari, a popular Iranian actress (and playing herself in this film). As the movie opens, a teenage girl posts an Instagram addressed to Jafari, where she seemingly hangs herself, distraught at the fact that her family won't let her study at an art school in Tehran. Jafari and a friend (director Panahi, playing himself) decide to searches for the girl... At this point we're 10 min. into the movie but to tell you more of the plot would spoil your viewing experience, you'll just have to see for yourself how it all plays out.

Couple of comments: this is the latest movie from writer-director Jafar Panahi, who in 2010 was banned by the Iranian authorities from making any more movies. Panahi's excellent 2011 movie "This Is Not a Film" was the first to be made during that ban, and "3 Faces" is the 4th. Working on a micro-budget and at great personal risk, Panahi and his crew nevertheless manage to brings us a riveting film about what life in rural Iran is really like., and the cost in terms of the human condition. In other words, this is the perfect opposite of the latest Marvel superhero movie. Given the plot-heavy nature of the movie, I can't say much more.

"3 Faces" premiered at this year's Cannes film festival to universal acclaim, and Panahi won (in absentia, of course) the festival's Best Screenplay award. I'd say the chances of this movie getting an Oscar nomination for Best Foreign Language Movie are pretty good too. I happen to catch this film during a recent family visit in Belgium. The early evening screening where I saw this at in Antwerp, Belgium was not attended well (exactly 5 people, myself included). Regardless, if you are in the mood for a top notch foreign film that was made despite a ban on the director, I'd readily suggest you check this out, be it in the theater (if and when this reaches US theaters), on VOD, or eventually on DVD/Blu-ray, and draw your own conclusion.

First of all I want to share my emotions after the movie (I will not add any words that contain spoilers). This film is just worth to be watched if you want to know what is happening in the lives of people in countries where honor and dignity are above all. Above their desires, their grand dreams, their plans, their lives. How it's difficult for people to live, according to our humble version, in the mountainous settlements of Iran (South Azerbaijan). How hard they have to live when there is not enough help from the townspeople. But despite all this, everything ends at the will of the person himself, whose desires are above honor and dignity.

This is a brilliant film. Beautiful, poignant, unpredictable, quite harsh yet with a few sparks of humour. The actors (mostly playing themselves) and the screenplay are amazing. It does require a lot of attention and analysis, as it covers several social issues (artists' and women's rights mainly) with subtle metaphors and a peculiar visual "language". Some moments were a bit too cryptic for me, probably due to a cultural gap. You have to respect Jafar Pahani for managing to create such a rich and multi-layered visual story under such hard conditions and constraints. I highly recommend "Se rokh".

On its face "Three Faces" refers to the three faces of this movie's three actresses: one young, one middle-aged and one old. In reality, this is director Jafar Panahi's critique of Iranian cinema; the actresses representing Iranian cinema past, Iranian cinema present, and Iranian cinema future.

Prior to the Iranian Revolution of 1980, cinema in Iran was very popular. The country had a mature film-making industry that churned out products ranging from adventure films with virile male characters to important art films from internationally-recognized directors such as Abbas Kiarostami.

After the Ayatollah took over the country, these films were banned. Some artists managed to flee the country while others stayed and became outcasts like the old actress in this movie. Panahi intentionally never shows us her face, a reminder that Iranians are not permitted to view the films that comprise Iranian cinematic heritage. The old actress lives in a very humble house in a remote part of a very remote village, in the same way that Iranian film history exists, but has been tucked away from view by the mullahs, and stuck into a place unfitting its true stature. There is a very interesting scene in which, from a distance, Panahi sees all three actresses dancing and partying in the house. It is as if he is saying he knows there is a lot of great substance in the historic Iranian films, but he himself cannot enjoy it, given his own present circumstance as an Iranian filmmaker whose films are banned in his own country.

The middle-aged actress (played brilliantly by Behnaz Jafari) represents the current state of Iranian cinema, which is to say it is practically nonexistent. In this movie she is a TV actress who stars in cheap soap operas. Early in the film, Panahi describes her as follows: "in her current state she's not much use to anyone, anyway." Ouch.

Perhaps the most interesting of the three faces is that of the young actress, who represents Panahi's assessment of the future of Iranian cinema, which turns out not to be traditional cinema at all. This actress stars in a smart phone-produced video that might or might not be staged. The filmmakers of the future, he seems to be saying, will be unconstrained by whether a work might be categorized as fiction or non-fiction, but instead focused on important sociological themes that move people to act. Indeed, a look at present day Iranian Youtube videos reveals works that deal with social upheaval. One example: a woman wears her hijab too low on the bus and films away as a religious zealot spits in her face. These are the most important films coming out of Iran today.

Beyond its subtext, this film is very rich in terms of presenting for western viewers a look at a part of the world we rarely get to see. Panahi's portrayal of the people of rural Iran along the Turkish border seems very genuine. He presents them as multifaceted and interesting; we get a good dose of the good, the bad and the ugly in these people. The film is worth seeing for that alone.

To the pantheon of road movies we can add Jafar Panahi's "Se rokh" ("3 Faces" in English), about an actress traveling across the country. Panahi plays himself in the movie. It's amazing that he managed to make the movie, as he's currently banned from making movies, due to depicting things that Iran's government finds inappropriate (such as "Offside", in which women try to attend a soccer game but get kept out of the stadium due to the sight of men in shorts).

Watching this movie, I got the feeling that life in Iran's hinterlands must be a miserable existence. It's not a great movie, but worth seeing as a look at people whom we don't often see.