Author: Ma Lixin (Professor, PhD Supervisor, Shandong Normal University)
Iran is a mysterious country for many, with a long history, splendid culture and rich oil. Today's Iran is a bright pearl on the "Belt and Road" for us. Iranian director Asha Farhati's films push open a window to people around the world to accurately observe the life of modern Iranian society.
Ashar Fahati is a leading figure in the contemporary Iranian New Wave film movement, having twice won the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film and is recognized as one of the world's greatest film artists on par with Fellini, Desika and Bergman. He always sees through all sentient beings with a lens full of sympathy and compassion, and interprets human social behavior with a philosophy of human nature that transcends good and evil; his stories are confusing and thrilling, creating a unique narrative aesthetic.
Stills from "Everybody Knows"
/I/
Marriage and family issues are central themes that Farhati films focus on. The 7 films he has directed so far have all addressed this theme without exception, which can be roughly divided into three dimensions.
He first examines divorced life in different cultural contexts. "Dance in the Dust" and "A Parting" mainly show the divorced life in the Atmosphere of Islamic Culture. The tragedy of Nazar and Rihanna is not because of the absence of love, but because of the inability to resist the pressure of strong tradition. Nader and Westminster's divorce was also not due to emotional problems at the beginning, but stemmed from a conflict of ideas on the issue of children's education, and the essence of this conflict is still the conflict between traditional culture and modern culture.
In contrast, "Past" shows a typical Western-style divorced life. Ahmed's marital relationship with Mary has long since died because of infidelity during marriage, and divorce is just a simple formality for them. What really interests the audience is that in paris, an iconic Western society, people have the right to choose a new family life during the period of separation, and Mary's two and a half children are the result of this choice (half refers to the one she and Samir are unmarried and pregnant before birth). This is clearly not allowed by traditional culture.
The situation of children during divorce is another issue of particular concern to him. Viewers who have watched "A Parting" are likely to be unforgettable for the last shot: the judge asks Teme to choose whether to live with his father or his mother, Temei nodded affirmatively, and then began to cry, but refused to say the answer, until Nader and Westminster went out, and Farhati still did not tell the audience who Teme chose. It is true that we cannot know for sure what Teme chose, but we have deeply experienced the great pain and trauma caused to Temei's soul by the divorce of our parents! In "The Past", Lucy also presents us with the same shocking unbearable pain brought to her by her parents' divorce. From these roles, we can feel Farhati's deep humanitarian feelings.
In addition, his portrayal of extramarital affairs and family stability is equally thought-provoking. In this regard, "Fireworks Wednesday" and "Past" are two rare models. The former reveals the serious devastation of extramarital affairs to family relationships. Originally a happy family with a good life, Mujeti has suffered from severe depression since she discovered the clues of her husband Motza's extramarital affair with her neighbor Somi, and the order of the whole family has fallen into chaos. Mujeti's endless, almost neurotic fights, suspicions, suspicions, and stalking, in turn, torment Mortza so distraught that he can't work, while innocent children are caught in the middle. Although the extramarital affair in "The Past" takes place in a free world like Paris, ironically, its consequences are more serious, and Samir's extramarital affair not only caused his wife Selena to suffer from the same severe depression, but even led to her suicide.
Finally, we cannot ignore the moral philosophy that fahati films engulf. In the context of Iranian culture, the standards of morality are always clear and unambiguous, and there is always a clear distinction between good and evil. But the characters who appear in Farhati's shots are neither perfectly good nor heinous villains. In "Dance in the Dust", Nazar who came to the great desert and the old snake catcher were still in a hostile relationship at first, but when Nazar was bitten by a poisonous snake and was in danger, the old man took out all his savings to save his life. In "The Salesman", Lana and Emmad were intimate and affectionate before they were killed, but after the assault, the relationship between the two began to appear obviously cracked. Lana becomes sensitive, vulnerable and fearful, but Ehmad only thinks about his own dignity and insists on revenge regardless of Lana's feelings, and the result can be imagined. The most shocking is Nader in "A Parting". Before The Accident, Nader was a completely middle-class gentleman, but after the accident, he instantly became a cold, grumpy, selfish, cunning, and hypocritical person, and in all of this, only his care for the child Teme and the care for his sick father were rock solid. All of this constitutes the most basic moral philosophy of Farhati's films. In his eyes, there is no such thing as immutable good and evil in human nature, and people cannot be defined by simple good and evil, so some critics have summarized Farhati's film philosophy as a philosophy of moral ambiguity.
/II/
One of the important reasons why Farhati's films have such a strong artistic appeal is that he has created a unique narrative aesthetic.
Farhati is good at setting up motivational events full of strong suspense, which is his magic weapon to explore the mysteries of human nature, highlight the potential of human nature, and torture human nature for good and evil. He has a unique and profound insight into narrative aesthetics. He believes that in the usual, stress-free living environment, human nature is floating on the surface, and once a sudden major crisis is encountered, that is, once a motivational event occurs, people trapped in it will involuntarily choose different actions, and everyone's actions are uncertain, and these uncertain human actions will inevitably produce a strong suspense effect, and the complexity of human nature and moral ambiguity will be correspondingly manifested from these slowly unfolding, uncertain actions. This is the true face of life, and it is also the original face of human nature. Therefore, the true realistic narrative aesthetic must follow the logic of life, which is the logical starting point for him to construct his own film narrative aesthetic.
Stills from "A Parting"
The daughter Teme in "A Parting" The pictures in this article are all file pictures
Dance in the Dust is a test of his narrative aesthetic. Shortly after the story begins, the happy life that the groom Nazar and the bride Rihanna have just begun is shattered by a sudden gossip about Rihanna's mother's status as a prostitute, which is a major motivating event, and from this point on, Nazar begins his ups and downs, dangerous desert snake hunting journey. Like Dance in the Dust, the incentive events for Belle Ville, The Salesman, and Everyone Knows are set shortly after the story begins. Unlike the above works, in About Eli, A Parting, and Past, Farhati sets the motivational events in the middle of the entire story's progression. Taking "About Yi Li" as an example, the sudden disappearance of the protagonist of the story, Yi Li, is obviously a motivating event of the play, although most of the plot has passed at this time, but its suspense effect has not weakened in the slightest, more importantly, this arrangement can contrast the character personality before and after the incentive event, which is more conducive to highlighting and revealing the authenticity and complexity of the character's personality. The same is true of the setting of the "Parting" and "Past" incentive events. This is Farhati's ingenious narrative strategy: there is no fixed program, and all designs are subordinated to and serve the realistic aesthetic interpretation of human nature's good and evil.
The well-designed dilemma is another prominent feature of Farhati's narrative aesthetic. The dilemma stems from Hegel's aesthetics, which describes the positioning of the actor in the conflict of values in narrative art that cannot be broken away from, but at the same time has a double rationality, forcing him to make the only choice, so as to stimulate the shocking aesthetic emotions and life conditions. Common dilemma patterns include life and death conflicts, loyalty and filial piety conflicts, honor and disgrace conflicts, love-hate conflicts, and reasonable conflicts. There is no doubt that the incentive event creates the best conditions for the setting of the subsequent dilemma, but the two are not simply causal. Farhati has shown great artistic achievement in transforming motivational events into one amazing dilemma after another.
Dance in the Dust sets up at least three dilemmas. After the divorce, Nazar, when he first arrived in the great desert, encountered a dilemma of life and death - either risking death to survive and catching snakes to make money; or returning to the city, his promises were disappointed. Subsequently, he was bitten by a poisonous snake, and his life was hanging in the balance, which created a dilemma of good and evil for the snake-trapper old man - in the face of the enemy bitten by the poisonous snake, he either stayed out of the matter or carried out salvation. The biggest and most powerful dilemma takes place at the climax of the story – for Nazar, who, faced with the old man's upfront surgical expenses with all his savings, he either saves his broken finger or uses the money to fulfill his promises. It is a dilemma in which life and integrity clash. We see that whether it is Nazar or the old snake catcher, every choice and action they choose in these interlocking dilemmas is a soul struggle and baptism, full of great uncertainty, and cannot be judged by simple and clear good and evil.
Dilemmas such as these also appear in large numbers in Farhati's other subsequent works. Taking his recent film "Everyone Knows" as an example, after Irene's abduction, as the storyline progresses, there are three dilemmas: one is the dilemma of whether Laura faces the alarm or not, the second is the dilemma of whether Parker faces the sale of land, and the third is the dilemma of whether laura's niece Romeo is released from her cousin. There is no doubt that without these life difficulties, the characters in the work would never be so full, their fate would never be so gripping, and the theme of the film would never be interpreted so deeply.
The unique open-ended ending is another important hallmark of Farhati's narrative aesthetic. In narrative works, open endings usually refer to the development of the story to the end, the protagonist's dominant desires are still not realized, or the story still does not have a clear outcome, and Farhati has created another new open ending in his films that is different from the convention. Taking his two works that won the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film as an example, the narrative impetus of "A Parting" is the divorce appeal of the protagonists Nader and Westminster, which has been realized near the end of the film. After a thrilling family conflict, the two were physically and mentally exhausted, their relationship was broken, and the court finally allowed him to divorce. But the clever Farhati did not fall into the cliché, he asked his daughter Teme to make a clear choice about his custody, but did not tell the audience the outcome of the choice. Did Teme choose Nader or Westminster? Such an ending is both novel and meaningful. "The Salesman" also designed an open-ended ending with the same aesthetic characteristics. Near the end of the story, Lana's murderer is finally forgiven by Amad, but the forgiven murderer has another heart attack and faints in the corridor as he goes downstairs; Lana and Amad, who witness all this, then leave this place of right and wrong alone. Can the forgiven murderer escape the punishment of a ruthless fate? Have the traumatized Ehmad and Lana been falling in love with each other since then, or have they gone their separate ways? These questions are asked by the audience forever.
Taken together, powerful motivating events, diverse dilemmas, and unique open-ended endings form the narrative aesthetic framework of Farhati's Trinity and become his winning magic weapon for interpreting moral propositions.
/III/
As a modern narrative art, the main aesthetic appeal of the film is to create a character that resonates with the audience. In this regard, different directors show different aesthetic interests, and Farhati is obviously fond of the antagonistic character image.
Asha Farhati
His two early films, Dance in the Dust and Belle Ville, pioneered the exploration of the underclass of modern Iranian society. The former portrayed Nazar, a young Muslim living in the urban settlements. He was devout, he dared to give everything to keep his promises; he was humble, powerless to resist the pressures of tradition and had to divorce someone he loved. Compared with Nazar, the image of Feruze, a woman at the bottom of society, is more full of "Beautiful City". In order to save her brother, she exhausted all possibilities, but she would not be as desperate as Nazar; in order to survive, she could ignore the pressure of the world and temporarily fight with drug dealers; in the face of love and affection, she struggled, and from her, we seemed to see the real fate of ordinary women in The lower society of Iran.
Beginning with Fireworks Wednesday, Farhati has focused his lens on the middle class of Iranian society and dedicated a series of characters with distinct personalities. Among them, the male protagonist Morteza and the heroine Mujeti in "Fireworks Wednesday", Nader and Westminster in "A Parting", Ahmed and Maria in "Past", and Emad and Lana in "Salesman" are all unique and rare typical personalities, they are like a multi-prism, which not only vividly reflects the rich, independent, self-respecting, open and free side of the middle class, but also deeply reveals their hypocrisy, arrogance, selfishness, cowardice, sensitivity and depression.
In terms of overall style, Farhati's shots are deeply influenced by Italian neorealist film masters such as Fellini and Desica, showing a universal documentary character, and under this general feature, his lens language also has some distinct personality.
Poster of "Past"
Farhati's films start with meaningful long shots. "A Parting" is a long shot of about 2 minutes of copying divorce materials to open the story, in the shot, the black background and the copier scanning lamp alternately appear, flickering on and off, where the lamp flashes, can only faintly see materials such as ID cards, real estate deeds and other materials gradually in and out of the photocopier, limited information and light and dark flashes seem to hint at the fate of the characters in the upcoming story. Similar to "A Parting", the "Salesman" begins with a long 4-minute shot. With a "Is anyone here?" Come out, the building is about to collapse", the protagonist Ahmed came out of the apartment where he lived and began to run downstairs in a panic, until a huge excavator appeared in the camera to dismantle the dangerous building. This long shot has at least two implications: one is that a Willy story is about to be staged, and the other is that the family stability of Emade and Lana is about to be broken.
Farhati likes to have characters speak to the camera. Whether it is moving, or static, whether it is a close-up, or a medium shot, as long as there are characters talking in the shot, he always tries to make the characters face the audience. There are almost no Hollywood-style over-the-shoulder shots in his films. His lens makes the audience and the characters in the lens form a visual relationship, which is not only conducive to gathering the attention of the audience, but also easier for the audience to construct an equal perspective relationship with the characters, so that it is easier to arouse the audience's emotional resonance for the characters. In addition, Farhati likes to use light-hearted and cheerful music as the signature ending of his works, and whenever the music starts, his story also reaches the end. In addition, his lens language is all about natural sound.
In addition, there are several iconic props that have become indispensable elements of Farhati's directing style. The first is glass or windows. On the one hand, he likes to place glass windows or glass doors between the characters and the lens. In "A Parting," we look at every member of the family through the interior glass windows of Nader's house many times: Teme, who is always melancholy, Westminster, who is in a hurry, the sick old man with sluggish eyes, and the innocent little girl Somayer. When we observe these figures through the glass, our vision is indeed blurred, which adds to the mystery of the characters, which gives us a strong hint: it is likely that these figures behind the glass are not easy to understand. This is the special meaning that Farhati gives to this prop.
Farhati, on the other hand, likes to have his characters interact through the glass. The opening scene of "The Past" begins with Maria picking up her husband from Paris for divorce at the airport, and the two are painting through a glass door, apparently unable to hear each other's voices. What Farhati conveys through this design is that although the parties can see each other, they do not understand each other in their hearts. In Farhati's view, this is commonplace in real life: even if there is no obstacle between two people, they are actually still far away, as if something is standing between them. It is from life that Farhati gained such a profound insight, and then, in his films, he conveyed this insight to the audience through the prop of glass.
Farhati also particularly favored props such as houses that are extremely enclosed and private. The house as the residence of the character appears in almost all film works, but the house in Farhati's films has another meaning. In his view, the human character has a duality, what is shown in public is the superficiality of the person, and only in a highly secure family environment can the true character of the character have the opportunity to show it, so he uses the house as a prop, in fact, as a laboratory for testing the true humanity. We see that in A Parting, Nader, who understands the complexities of society, only returns home to admit to his daughter Terme that he did hear Theuz's pregnant conversation from the kitchen. Similarly, in "The Salesman", only when she returns to the apartment, the abused Lana dares to express her worries and insecurities in front of her husband, Emade. As Farhati says, what we see in a house is actually the way a society is.
Guangming Daily (2020.03.26. 13th edition)