1953. The United States, the United Kingdom and their respective corporate cartels stage a coup and successfully overthrow the democratically elected government of Iran (specifically Prime Minister Mohammad Mosaddegh, who was set to nationalise local oil). Enter Mohammed Reza Pahlavi, your classic dictatorial, Western puppet leader. He's a full blown oil pimp. His people hate him, but the West love him. He rules as Shah of Iran until 1979, at which point he is overthrown by a local revolution led by the religious leader Ayatollah Khomeini. The rise of Khomeini is presented as a populist and spontaneous uprising, but Khomeini was backed by both the US and UK with the specific aim of ousting Pahlavi, a one time puppet who, like Saddam Hussein, had grown too big for his boots. Prior to his ousting, Pahlavi had begun to flex his muscles, refusing to sign away exclusive oil rights and beginning a programme to seek "oil-sales policy independence". The oil barons and superpowers don't like this. They stage another illegal coup. Not wanting left-wing democrats taking over from the Shah, the CIA began courting the Muslim Brotherhood and the Ayatollahs, all essentially religious fundamentalists. These clandestine operations echo CIA orchestrated coups against democratically elected officials in Guatemala, Venezuela, Nicaragua, Cuba etc etc (see Alex Cox's "Walker"), most of whom were trying to institute land reforms, nationalise resources or help bridge the gaps between the peasantry and landowners. Can't have that.
Shortly prior to the toppling of Reza Pahlavi, a "soft war" was waged against Iran. The West refused to buy Iranian oil, began a campaign of economic pressure, planted covert agitators to fan religious discontent, put embargoes in place, staged oil and banking strikes and began cynically protesting the presence of "Iranian abuses of human rights". Meanwhile, Ayatollah Khomeini, who was being groomed to be the new leader of Iran, began appearing on news networks, which willingly gave voice to his propaganda. The message was clear: Anglo-American intelligence was committed to toppling their puppet. The Shah fled in January, and by February 1979 Khomeini had been flown into Iran to replace the Shah's government and proclaim the establishment of his own repressive theocratic state. Almost immediately, the US then began funding Iraq's decade long war against Iran.
Over the years, leaks and whistle-blowing would reveal the point of the Iranian fiasco: the radical Muslim Brotherhood movement behind Khomeini was endorsed specifically in order to promote the balkanization of the entire Muslim Near East along tribal and religious lines. In encouraging autonomous groups it was hoped that chaos would spread in what was termed an "Arc of Crisis", which would spill over into Muslim regions of the Soviet Union. Of course such arrangements never go quite to plan, but then, chaos partially was the plan.
Iranian art cinema was born in 1962 with "The House is Black", a documentary by Farough Farrokhzad which revolved around a leper colony. From here the Iranian New Wave's compassionate, neorealist and "humanist" qualities would spring. Seven years later Dariush Mehrjui's "The Cow" was released, regarded by many as the first "true" feature film of the Iranian New Wave. The film was funded by the Shah's government but was then quickly banned by the Ministry of Culture, presumably because it dared portray the impoverished conditions of rural Iran (ironically, after brutally oppressing his people, the errand-boy Shah was granted freedom and citizenship in the United States). In 1971 the film was smuggled to the Venice Film Festival, at which point it gained considerable recognition. Thanks largely to its odd and ambiguous plot - which plays well to Western audiences unfamiliar with Iranian culture, history and customs - the film raced across the world.
"The Cow's" plot? Dark, allegorical, mysterious and twisted, the story revolves around an Iranian villager, played by Ezzatolah Entezami, who owns the only cow in his village, a village perpetually terrified of thieves and invaders. After a brief absence, Ezzatolah returns home to find that his cow has died. This event plunges the man into madness, such that he eventually comes to believe that he is himself a cow.
The film plays like a cross between Kafka, an old folk-tale and the neorealist movement (neorealism is almost like a rite of passage which nations must at one point pass through). Of course those familiar with neorealist works may find little of interest here, but "The Cow" was nevertheless daring in its depiction of rural poverty in a society where the ruling class enjoyed all the fruits of economic growth. With its modernist score and bovine metamorphosis, the film also has an unsettling quality, particularly in the way it portrays a man whose identity, work, income, life and happiness are so inextricable from his beast of burden, his property, that its absence instigates an almost immediate and total meltdown. Our hero isn't just close to his one earthly possession, he seems to embody it before its absence. Elsewhere the film points fingers at scapegoaters, blind religious faith, jealousy and the dangers of suppressing truths. Incidentally, one of the chief chapters in the Koran is titled "The Cow", and like this film deals with "those who cover up reality" and the way "denial leads to disease". In that story, a cow's death is responsible for deciding who is guilty of a crime. Here, it's almost as though Ezzatolah becomes the cow to prevent crimes being forgotten. Unsurprisingly, the film was written by Gholam-Hossein Saedi, a staunch Marxist. The plot loosely (but not necessarily) echoes Marx's writings on "animal-like, estranged, objectified human labour".
Aesthetically, Mehrjui stresses flat planes, windows, squares, frames, screens, and frequently has his characters arranged like we the audience, looking in as Ezzatolah's grotesque transformation takes place. The film has a creepy, primitive quality; like a folk tale re-enacted by a gang of centenarians.
8.5/10 - Worth one viewing.
Shortly prior to the toppling of Reza Pahlavi, a "soft war" was waged against Iran. The West refused to buy Iranian oil, began a campaign of economic pressure, planted covert agitators to fan religious discontent, put embargoes in place, staged oil and banking strikes and began cynically protesting the presence of "Iranian abuses of human rights". Meanwhile, Ayatollah Khomeini, who was being groomed to be the new leader of Iran, began appearing on news networks, which willingly gave voice to his propaganda. The message was clear: Anglo-American intelligence was committed to toppling their puppet. The Shah fled in January, and by February 1979 Khomeini had been flown into Iran to replace the Shah's government and proclaim the establishment of his own repressive theocratic state. Almost immediately, the US then began funding Iraq's decade long war against Iran.
Over the years, leaks and whistle-blowing would reveal the point of the Iranian fiasco: the radical Muslim Brotherhood movement behind Khomeini was endorsed specifically in order to promote the balkanization of the entire Muslim Near East along tribal and religious lines. In encouraging autonomous groups it was hoped that chaos would spread in what was termed an "Arc of Crisis", which would spill over into Muslim regions of the Soviet Union. Of course such arrangements never go quite to plan, but then, chaos partially was the plan.
Iranian art cinema was born in 1962 with "The House is Black", a documentary by Farough Farrokhzad which revolved around a leper colony. From here the Iranian New Wave's compassionate, neorealist and "humanist" qualities would spring. Seven years later Dariush Mehrjui's "The Cow" was released, regarded by many as the first "true" feature film of the Iranian New Wave. The film was funded by the Shah's government but was then quickly banned by the Ministry of Culture, presumably because it dared portray the impoverished conditions of rural Iran (ironically, after brutally oppressing his people, the errand-boy Shah was granted freedom and citizenship in the United States). In 1971 the film was smuggled to the Venice Film Festival, at which point it gained considerable recognition. Thanks largely to its odd and ambiguous plot - which plays well to Western audiences unfamiliar with Iranian culture, history and customs - the film raced across the world.
"The Cow's" plot? Dark, allegorical, mysterious and twisted, the story revolves around an Iranian villager, played by Ezzatolah Entezami, who owns the only cow in his village, a village perpetually terrified of thieves and invaders. After a brief absence, Ezzatolah returns home to find that his cow has died. This event plunges the man into madness, such that he eventually comes to believe that he is himself a cow.
The film plays like a cross between Kafka, an old folk-tale and the neorealist movement (neorealism is almost like a rite of passage which nations must at one point pass through). Of course those familiar with neorealist works may find little of interest here, but "The Cow" was nevertheless daring in its depiction of rural poverty in a society where the ruling class enjoyed all the fruits of economic growth. With its modernist score and bovine metamorphosis, the film also has an unsettling quality, particularly in the way it portrays a man whose identity, work, income, life and happiness are so inextricable from his beast of burden, his property, that its absence instigates an almost immediate and total meltdown. Our hero isn't just close to his one earthly possession, he seems to embody it before its absence. Elsewhere the film points fingers at scapegoaters, blind religious faith, jealousy and the dangers of suppressing truths. Incidentally, one of the chief chapters in the Koran is titled "The Cow", and like this film deals with "those who cover up reality" and the way "denial leads to disease". In that story, a cow's death is responsible for deciding who is guilty of a crime. Here, it's almost as though Ezzatolah becomes the cow to prevent crimes being forgotten. Unsurprisingly, the film was written by Gholam-Hossein Saedi, a staunch Marxist. The plot loosely (but not necessarily) echoes Marx's writings on "animal-like, estranged, objectified human labour".
Aesthetically, Mehrjui stresses flat planes, windows, squares, frames, screens, and frequently has his characters arranged like we the audience, looking in as Ezzatolah's grotesque transformation takes place. The film has a creepy, primitive quality; like a folk tale re-enacted by a gang of centenarians.
8.5/10 - Worth one viewing.