Ma Gui (Ph.D., Faculty of Liberal Arts, Chinese University)
The attraction of a movie is like a gimmick on a topic, explicit or implicit, and the plot revolves around it. For "Persian Lessons", the theme that makes the audience's heart-wrenching whole time is "survival". In the "World War II" Holocaust-themed films, there are many masterpieces under the theme of "Surviving", such as "Schindler's List" and "Beautiful Life". These reflective films are dedicated to exploring human nature in extreme circumstances. Extreme situations are also the catalysts of special events, and we see more than just stating things, but taking a different path. Just as "A Beautiful Life" is essentially a cruel fairy tale, "Persian Lesson" is a fable, an allegory about the utopia of language. Therefore, survival depends on how this utopia is woven.
Poster of "Persian Lessons"
The protagonist of the story is a Belgian Jew in a Nazi concentration camp. As a "surviving" themed film, its drama subtly focuses on how the protagonist creates a language that does not exist in the real world to save his life. He disguised himself as a Persian and taught Persian Persian, a Nazi officer eager to open a restaurant in Tehran after the war. But in fact, he knew nothing about Persian and was in danger of being exposed at any time. This tension is like a tightly pulled string between two people; the name of this string is "trust." We can look back at the film's poster, which is impressive: at the desk where the Jewish death row list is entered, the prisoner cautiously glances at the Nazi officer next to him. They sit one by one, one high and one low, showing a disparity in power. The prisoner glanced obliquely at the yellowed manuscript paper in the officer's hand. On the manuscript paper were the forty "Persian" words he had just concocted. And these words are all taken from the root of the death row inmate's name.
Create a language that begins with a name. After watching the movie, the audience will not care about the protagonist's original name, but will call him "Reza", the protagonist's invented Persian name, and remember him. The exotic name is the amulet, which he has always been called in the movie. "Reza" opens a fictional chain followed by a series of Jewish prisoners' names. "Reza" dominated the language project, using many names to derive a set of "Persian languages". If we trace the origin of this linguistic story, it should be the moment when the protagonist exchanges the last loaf of bread for a book of Persian mythology in a cart full of Jewish death row prisoners: he sees the name from the title page of the book. This is the "World War II" version of the "Bread and Flowers" adventure, and all the inspiration and salvation comes from the twinkling brilliance of the last petal. The film begins with such a statement, which seems to imply that "flowers" have a more mature redemptive power than bread. In other words, nothing else, but our knowledge, morality, and courage give us the opportunity to save from history.
The "Persian" utopia quietly echoes the legend of the Tower of Babel. To prevent the construction of the Tower of Babel, God scattered humanity into different languages. In this way, when different linguistic groups meet, the barrier lies ahead. How to achieve cognition and communication between people depends on translation. Translation makes communication possible. One of the most immediate results of reza's translation work—translating the German words given by The Nazi officers into "Persian"—was to gain the trust of the Nazi officer, Kech, and save his life. At the same time, his translation carries a more shocking effect, reflecting the allegorical nature of the film. The harsh reality of the concentration camps forced those names to lose the dimension of life they represented, or even disappear. "Translate" them into "Persian" and give meaning to each name, turning it into meaningful nouns or verbs. For example, Reza's name (also the name of a small child) Aviva gives meaning "life" to a lost doll. So when there are mouths saying "Persian," these people are constantly being mentioned.
However, as many have questioned, the "Persian language" in the film does not stand up to the test of linguistics. A language is not only supported by words, but also grammar. For true Persian, it is spelled in Arabic and Persian alphabets; the word order of "subject-object-predicate" is basically used; modifiers are actually after the central language; verbs reflect grammatical categories such as personal names, tenses, and moods through changes in the end of words. The core of the "Persian" teaching in the film is almost limited to nouns and verbs, and grammar is the grammar of German. That is to say, Reza does not think about it from the perspective of the language system when it comes to fictional language, and there is no thoughtful consideration. He simply added nouns and verbs to build a framework for a basic world. The world, dominated by food, nature and simplicity, is Koch's utopia.
Stills from "Persian Lessons"
Another protagonist, Koch, is the central pillar of this linguistic utopia. Koch was a Nazi captain with a mixture of paradoxical psychology and emotion. In terms of character function, he plays the role of the driving force of the drama. It was he who gave Reza a chance to survive several times, sent him to the quarry and rescued him, which allowed the "Persian" lesson to continue. It was he who brought Reza back from the ranks on the way to the Polish concentration camps, and more of the names of death row inmates had a chance to enter the "Persian language". At these critical moments, the German officer was the savior, the one who completed the work of "Persian" creation. Sometimes, the audience even feels that the protagonist of the whole film should be this German officer who is both mild-mannered and irritable. He revealed certain Nazi psychiatric symptoms: the fear behind contempt for Jews. In the rapid development of modern capitalism in Europe, the Jews exerted their advantages and achieved a great liberation in all aspects of politics, economy and society. They move around the world and in many ways demonstrate eye-catching adaptability and competitiveness. The rise of the Jews provoked resentment among the locals, and it was in this atmosphere of Jewish anxiety that the Nazis came to the stage of history. Behind the hatred and contempt for the Jews, there is a looming jealousy of their social, economic and cultural capabilities. In the film, Koch is dressed in a straight uniform and gives orders with his head held high, but his proud posture is finally defeated by a detail. When he heard Reza translate bread and tree in the same "Persian" word, he felt something was wrong and instantly became angry. He felt humiliated and did not expect to be deceived so easily by a Jewish criminal. A lack of intellect, experience, and linguistic knowledge frustrated the Nazi commander and brought him to the brink of collapse. Gentle, he slammed his fist to the ground: "I believe you, but you lied to me, why is that?" Just for you and the other Jews can make fun of me? After beating Reza, his smashed fist dripped blood.
But Koch neither executed the execution nor was he the commander of the battalion. In his own words, he had no authority, just a cook. Obviously, the film does not want to see him as a representative of the fierce. He has in him what Arendt calls "banal evil," which works in the chain of evil and violence. Koch is in charge of the files of death row inmates and is also responsible for the diet of the army. Throughout the chain of evil operations, he provides planning, energy, and empowerment. Occasionally, when he roared in German, we witnessed his horrific faces. On the other hand, when Reza asked him why he joined the Nazis, he confessed that he had been engulfed in some unknown passion and had joined the army in a confused way. But deep down, he harbored nostalgia for his "brothers" who broke with him for joining the Nazis, who went into exile in Switzerland after the Nazis came to power and moved to Iran. He longs to return to his old business and return to the ordinary life of catering work. And this desire of his continued to translate into a passion for learning "Persian".
In Koch, evil and warmth coexist strangely. The two are expressed in a differentiated way through German and "Persian". German was the regular language of concentration camps, and Nazi soldiers used it to belittle and insult prisoners, issue orders, and use it to talk and laugh at the party table. Gossip among bureaucrats was secretly circulated through the German language. In power relations such as the private affair between the female corporal and the commander, the jealousy between the female corporal, and the secret game between the superiors and subordinates of Nazi officials, German was the dominant language. In all the German lines, it is difficult to hear words that make people feel warm; instead, they are full of barbarism, arrogance, aggression and calculation. Koch, on the other hand, spoke and expressed the taboos of concentration camps in the learned "Persian language." He recalls his life in "Persian", telling about his bond with his "brothers" and his simple and warm pillows for the work of the chef. All of this tells the audience that there are many things about koch as a character that are incompatible with the concentration camp. The Persian language is a network of meanings that only two people understand, providing him with a deep refuge in his heart.
In any case, between Reza and Koch, a utopia was eventually built with the "Persian language". In this utopia, Koch imagined himself and was mentally detached from the Nazi soldiers. Reza, on the other hand, became a special case among tens of thousands of death row inmates. What is particularly intriguing is the relationship between the two of them, which became docile with the blessing of the "Persian language". In the beginning, they were officers and prisoners, orders and executions, in which there was contempt and fear. But in the teaching of languages, the officer is the student, and the prisoner becomes the teacher. This demand that they must get rid of prejudices and exchange ideas. Through the exchange of "Persian", the relationship between Koch and Reza gradually became full, and gradually something could be called "communication" between them.
However, the effectiveness of the "Persian language" is limited to the two men. It is a symbol and a secret that only they can understand. This means that once a third party is involved, the secret faces corruption. The utopia of the "Persian language" can become precarious by the infiltration of any thought of doubt. The film takes advantage of this to create drama in the calm and depressing narrative process. For example, in the second half of the film, a real Persian prisoner comes to the camp. Byer, a soldier who had always harbored a grudge against Reza, was so excited that he immediately called the Persian out and brutally confronted Reza to talk to him. This paragraph makes the audience feel sorry for Reza. What allowed Reza to survive this was an Italian-Jewish brother he had helped with food he had brought from Koch, who had helped him cut the throat of the Persians, but was killed. Reza's passage through the devastation is a flash and echo of goodwill in suffering. The film suggests that even in the most extreme situations, human nature flows with mutual gifts.
The film has a plot that impresses us. When Koch had mastered a large number of "Persian" words, he could tell the story of his life in this language and write poetry. He read the poem he had written to Reza:
The wind sent the clouds to the east
Over there
Everywhere is a soul that craves peace
I know
I will be happy
With the cloud
Drift to the place
In any language, the poem uses the simplest vocabulary. The tone of the poem is sincere and soothing, and it is a pleasant tone to express anti-war sentiments. But we can't ignore that it came from a Nazi captain. In any case, this is extremely frightening. The Persian Lesson responds to George Steiner's question of "language and silence." Steiner was a well-known critic of humanism, but also a man with fond memories of the Holocaust. He famously posed a question in Language and Silence: "We now know that a man can read Goethe and Rilke at night, he can play Bach and Schubert, and in the morning he will go to work at Auschwitz." To say that he read these books without knowing their meaning, and played these songs without understanding their sounds, is a pretentious word. In what way should this knowledge have an impact on literature and society? Why is that? ”
Steiner's question ultimately rests on the carrying of human nature and morality by art. Why is it that the longer civilization progresses, the more brutal violence becomes? Art, on the other hand, is often not resisting political violence, but is resigned to it, even making it seem more elegant. Another version of the more common question is that art is purely self-made, distancing itself from history. In fact, the film also gives its answer to this issue. Koch was not forgiven for his inner warmth, as one viewer brilliantly summed up, when he uttered a "Persian" word, it was a living man who fell; when he read a poem, it burned a large expanse of innocent corpses. Reza's Jewish name was concealed, but he survived. More Jews were thrown into the crematorium. The violence of history is twofold, it wants people and their names to disappear. On the occasion of the Nazi defeat, commanders hurriedly threw death row lists and archives into the burning fireplace. Leaving no trace means "finding no one", as if the evil deeds were like vanishing smoke, floating lightly, invisible, and never happened. "Persian Lessons" has a strong retrospective nature, and the exterior of the concentration camp is filled with cold fog, symbolizing the maddening years. And the determination of this film is to penetrate and illuminate it. The most direct and profound moral of the film is how language/words record the soul of the dead and inscribe disaster. If historiography is regarded as a kind of salvage work, then at the end, when Reza reads out the names of the dead one by one, the historical purpose of the film is also fulfilled.
The film presents the fate of the two protagonists in a montage. One by one, Reza read out the names of the slaughtered. Koch was finally recognized on board the plane, and the utopia of "Persian" was destroyed. Some viewers might envision a different ending: Why not let Reza be present when Koch is recognized? How intense is that situation, and will Koch be heartbroken or enlightened? This assumption actually holds that Koch's trust in and favor with Reza, and the time the two spend together based on the "Persian language" will eventually become a reinforcing agent of emotional tension. As a result, everything is likely to end in the entanglement of human nature, and the emotional contradictions of the two worlds rush to the foreground of history.
However, the film does not avoid the importance of the heavy and light, blurring the historical judgment. In the face of tens of thousands of undead souls, the "teacher-student" friendship that occurred under duress is not worth mentioning at all. What's more, Reza wasn't saved by Koch—his life was his own. The Persian Lesson is a heavy lookback, and any art of the subject of massacre must be a heavy lookback. The word "life" is not trivial, unlike a devastated rag doll, which can be restored to its original state with a wash. At the end of the film, the two protagonists are placed in two time and space to open up the resolute attitude. It reminds us once again that Koch's "Persian" utopia may seem beautiful, but it has always been built on thousands of corpses. In any case, the morality of history will not allow it to last much longer. That is why the German officer could never escape to Tehran.
Editor-in-Charge: Wu Qin