A serious humorous documentary about cinema, about passion, about the cruelty of society, about the unspeakable tragedy of Iranian-American provocateur Caveh Zahedi who tries to overcome walls that he is not allowed to cross. Zahedi is commissioned to make a film for a Middle East Biennial in one of the United Arab Emirates on the theme of "art as a subversive act." He immediately checks if there are rules and restrictions that needs to be followed to make the film. Bad news, he is told to abide by some rules and should not be bound by his artistic nature to feature nudity. This sounded dumb as Zahedi is clearly a subversive filmmaker and the Arab woman in charge knows few things about the filmmaker. Anyway, the action shifts to Sharjah and everything that follows this plotless documentary is sheer madness. There are also some great instances of humour, such as all of the strange people who inhabit the set during the shooting, the enthusiastic characters who want to be part of the film, Zahedi's sequence with his son. A mishmash of characters is introduced, and the director has a unclear cringy story for everyone of them to be part of the film including the Indian kids. I must say that Zahedi might sound self-indulged to expose the system in Sharjah. On the other hand, the provocation of the regime and the authorities is present in every sentence, in every shot, in every wink. It plays out like a documentary that's equal parts fiction and exposé with amateur and random people as actors. To conclude, this is an extremely over-the-top (deliberate), with characters flatter than paper. You can't really blame Zahedi though; he is limited by the size of his small crew and he really had extended to the end of his abilities to make/mock. Despite these major script/making troubles, this is truly a victory for the director who raises the output to a higher level with his humour.
