It seems that people are doing a lot of musing about Iranian cinema lately—our web editor, Amy Kate, just asked me what I thought of Makhmalbaf’s Kandahar (seems more of a historical landmark than a film of historical significance, but I enjoyed it); and here critic Jonathan Rosenbaum (who was instrumental in popularizing Iranian cinema in the U.S.) tears into David Denby for reversing course on Kiarostami (subject of a new retrospective in New York):

In an April 1998 review of Abbas Kiarostami’s Taste of Cherry in New York magazine, David Denby scoffed at the idea that other critics were calling it a masterpiece. “This is a movie of great interest—an original work,” he said, “but it lacks the courage, the surprise, the ravenous hunger for life, of a serious work of movie art.” Almost nine years later, in the New Yorker’s listings, Denby promotes a Kiarostami retrospective at MOMA by calling the same film one of Kiarostami’s best, noting that he “redeems humanism by combining it with enchanting formal play” and “can turn the simplest action into a philosophical quest.”

It’s not quite a reversal, acknowledged or otherwise, but it does suggest a changed attitude, and a welcome one, perhaps spurred along by a desire to counter Bush’s demonization of what he chooses to call “Iran.” Or perhaps Denby has decided that a nonserious work of movie art can also be a philosophical quest that combines humanism with “enchanting formal play.”

I’m not sure what the fuck Rosenbaum is talking about when he says “what [Bush] chooses to call ‘Iran’”—is he supposed to call it Persia? The Islamic Republic of Iran? جمهوری اسلامی ايرا? I suppose Rosenbaum’s trying to get us to recall that grating cowboy pronunciation. But I understand the impulse: Iranian cinema of the last ten years is obstinately humanist, sometimes as a sort of consequence of censorship (the focus on children allows filmmakers to entirely circumvent issues regarding sex and veiling), sometimes in spite of it (the list of films banned in Iran that have gone on to international renown stretches from the prerevolutionary The Cow to Jafar Panahi’s Offside, which will probably play in SIFF ‘07 and open later in June). Seeing the people—the often poor, always poetry-loving, obviously romanticized, but nonetheless touching—people of Iran, as depicted in Iranian cinema, is a useful antidote to “axis of evil” political rhetoric about the government.

But more importantly, the films are great. And Farsi is a beautiful language. Balleh, balleh, it has the prettiest sounds in the world.

Greencine has a decent primer on the latter Iranian New Wave.

Here are my favorite Iranian films:

Forough Farrokhzad’s The House is Black (1963), available on DVD from Facets. A heartbreaking film about a leper colony, with Farrokhzad’s (a poet who died early, in a tragic car crash) own verse as voiceover. This is essential viewing for anyone interested in the aesthetics of documentary film.

Abbas Kiarostami’s Where is the Friend’s Home? (1987), Facets. Adorable, and a fascinating use of space on a child’s scale.

Kiarostami’s Close-Up (1990), Facets. A mindblowing movie in which an actual crime (the impersonation of the most famous Iranian director, Mohsen Makhmalbaf, by an abject fan, who uses his fraudulent “fame” to gain access to a well-off family) is reenacted by both the con-man and the people he deceived—culminating in the actual criminal trial and a meeting between the con-man and Makhmalbaf himself. These intricate layers of meta-realism never, amazingly enough, weigh down the film, which maintains a cheerily absurdist incredulity and loud-broadcast compassion throughout.

Samira Makhmalbaf’s The Apple (1998), out of print but available for rental at Scarecrow. The daughter of Mohsen Makhmalbaf made a film more arresting than (though nowhere near as polished as) any of her father’s films on her first outing at the age of 17. Also employing an actual family to play themselves, this time in an astonishingly cruel story of ignorance and child abuse, Makhmalbaf introduces us two stunted girls who have been locked behind the walls of their home for 12 years.