Due to historical reasons, and some economic reasons preceding and following the historical ones, we should know by now that Iranian diaspora in the so-called Western World is large. Also, it is often well-educated and active in arts and culture, sometimes even on the both sides, in both homelands, old and new. Cinema is not an exception, but this list is not about, for instance, Asghar Farhadi working in the context of the French or Spanish cinema, nor is touching some well-established common places of greatness, such as Marjane Satrapi's Persepolis. We bring you five relatively recent films made by the filmmakers coming from the Iranian diaspora that might have flown under the radar somehow, in order of quality.
5. At Any Price (Ramin Bahrani, 2012)
Ramin Bahrani reached greater success both with critics and audiences both before and after this film, either by touching the subjects from the (immigrants') margin, like in “Man Push Cart” (2005) and “Goodbye Solo” (2008) or by channeling the predominant sentiment of Americans hit by the 2008 economic crisis in “99 Homes” (2014). Add one more thing to the mix, the fact that Bahrani has also done some work in Iran before launching his international career, so it is not much of a surprise that “At Any Price” often gets neglected in it.
It is a pity, since it is actually a good, original and eloquent film that touches the important topic of how a huge branch of industry, this time big farming, works and why it is barely balancing on the edge of a disaster. The film also dares to touch into one of the most American things ever, NASCAR racing and to concentrate the scope on one family that serves as the entry- and focal point in Bahrani's deep, intelligent social study that also touches ethics, but never feels didactic or patronizing. With a rich script, discreet directing and perfectly chosen cast (Dennis Quaid for the farmer father and Zach Efron for the racer son), it qualifies to be seen as an essential watch.
4. Radio Dreams (Babak Jalali, 2016)
This one is actually about the Iranian diaspora in America, but not in any boring, predictable way. On the contrary, it is a mockumentary, a deeply felt social drama and a laugh-out-loud comedy centred around one Farsi-language radio station in San Francisco Bay Area. To spice the things up with a piece of trivia, Babak Jalali is not an American, but a British filmmaker, with two more degrees (in East European Studies and Politics), so it is not surprising that his filmography counts only four features so far, and most of them are political.
Let us say that Radio Dreams is the least openly political of the bunch, and it is also the gentlest and the most lighthearted one, but it never feels dumb or exploitative when it comes to the treatment of the characters. The radio station at the centre of attention has a big day, as their plan is to record a meeting and a jam session with Metallica and Kabul Dreams, but the members of the former are running late and eventually only the drummer shows up. The situation is almost catastrophic, since the original idea came from one of the editors, a former writer now moonlighting as a cultural journalist, and it is a noble one, about tolerance and building bridges between the cultures, while the “business lobby” at the station sees the whole event as a potentially lucrative publicity stunt, and the owner cares more about wrestling (Olympic, not professional) than about the station itself. It would be a pity to spoil it any more, because this one has a lot of heart and soul that needs to be seen, exposing a life in an immigrants' bubble that is usually the same, regardless of the national and cultural background.
3. Shelley (Ali Abbasi, 2016)
Ali Abbasi is certainly the rising star of the European festival-friendly elevated genre cinema, thanks mostly to his second feature “Border” (2018), while the based-on-true-events serial killer thriller “Holy Spider” has also made some splash at the festival circuit last year. His debut, “Shelley”, however, does not enjoy the same status, although it actually might even be superior to the better known follow-ups.
The title refers to Mary Shelley of Frankenstein fame, and it is a story of a Romanian housekeeper Elena who comes all the way to Sweden to work for a wealthy couple in their secluded home deep in the nature “where life is simple”. Elena wants to earn money to buy her own apartment in Bucharest, so she cannot refuse their offer to be the surrogate mother of their child. The pregnancy does not go as planned, so Elena slips into madness. Masterfully directed and acted, “Shelley” is an intelligent, layered story about the East and the West, poor and rich people, the attitudes and misconceptions they adopt and preach on and the inherent madness of motherhood and parenthood in general. It is a great debut worth our attention.
2) Under the Shadow (Babak Anvari, 2016)
This one is also a debut feature and an elevated horror flick, but this time it is actually set in Iran in the years just after the 1979 revolution. For the protagonist Shideh (played by Narges Rashidi), the horror comes from two places and in two forms. One is Djin, a malevolent spirit rooted in Islamic texts that haunts its victims, messes with their mind and drives them crazy. But Shideh's reality can be also described as horror. She is a woman in post-revolutionary Iran (before the revolution, she studied medicine) who rarely leaves her apartment in which she has some forbidden Western goods, like the illegal video-tapes of Jane Fonda's fitness exercise, and has to take care of her slightly spoiled daughter Dorsa. Her doctor husband is mobilized by the army and is in the combat zone of the ongoing Iraqi-Iranian war, while the missiles from the other side also fly over Tehran and occasionally hit civilian buildings.
The fear and the reality become one in Anvari's impressive, carefully envisioned, deeply political, psychological and otherwise layered feature that is also directed suggestively to perfection. “Under the Shadow” got a cult following straight from its world premiere at Sundance, highlighting the talent of its auteur and his potential to reach greatness in the realm of genre filmmaking. However, Anvari never managed to repeat the success, since his two following, more straight-up genre pieces made little impact both with critics and the audiences.
1. A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night (Ana Lily Amirpour, 2015)
Some things are just impossibly cool. So try to imagine a Jim Jarmusch vampire movie “dressed” in black and white like “Stranger Than Paradise” meets “Dead Man”, but directed by a woman who has made an impressive string of shorts before it. However, the greatest achievement of Ana Lily Amirpour with her feature debut “A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night” is inventing a completely new world that I like to call “Iranoamericana” through which she equally masterfully comments on life and death, fear and despair in both political, economic and cultural contexts that are, regarding certain issues, more similar than either side would like to admit.
The filmmaker went on to direct, on top of some high-end TV work, shorts and music videos, two more features, “The Bad Batch” (2016) and “Mona Lisa and the Blood Moon” (2021) that are pretty impressive on their own terms, but she has not still reached the greatness, the elegance and the coolness of her debut feature. How f—ing cool is that?
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