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| Behnaz Jafari and Jafar Panahi in 3 Faces |
It's probable that, because of my superficial acquaintance with Iranian film, I kept comparing Jafar Panahi's 3 Faces to films by Abbas Kiarostami. Like Kiarostami's And Life Goes On (1992), it concerns a journey from Tehran into the remote villages of the country, and like that film and his Through the Olive Trees (1994), it ends with a virtually wordless scene shot from a long distance. But from what I know from reading about Panahi and his work, this may be more hommage than mimicry: Panahi, who is forbidden from making films in Iran and nevertheless has made four since he was imprisoned and sanctioned, is keen to make statements about life and art in his country, and allusions to its most celebrated director are certainly in order. 3 Faces follows the actress Behnaz Jafari and Panahi, playing themselves, as they journey into northwestern Iran to try to find Marziyeh, a young woman who wants to attend the conservatory in Tehran and become an actress. In a desperate attempt to elicit their help, Marziyeh has made a video on her phone in which she appears to commit suicide. She sent the video to Jafari, who is so shocked by it that she drops out of the film she's making and enlists Panahi in trying to track down the young woman. What follows has been called a "road movie," in which actress and director drive an SUV along dirt roads deep into the hills to find out if Marziyeh really committed suicide or if she faked it to get attention. The bulk of the film is made up of some oddball encounters along the way and a struggle with the villagers who detest Marziyeh for her nonconformity, as well as with the woman's family, which is at odds over her ambitions. Marziyeh turns up alive, having taken shelter with Shahrzad, a former actress whose career ended with the Iranian revolution, and who lives a hermit-like life in this remote village, regarded with suspicion by the locals. "Shahrzad" is one of several spellings of "Scheherazade," the legendary storyteller of the One Thousand and One Nights. We never see the film's Shahrzad, but she's central to the film's themes; for one thing, the name means "world-freer." The family member most opposed to Marziyeh's pursuit of a career is her brother, who is so angry about his sister's flouting of tradition that he has to be restrained and shut in his room when Jafari and Panahi arrive at the family home. At the end, when Marziyeh's father is asked for permission to let her go to Tehran with the actress and the director, we see Panahi waiting outside -- Jafari has told him that it's best to let the women handle it -- as the furious brother emerges. The men keep their distance; Panahi gets out of the car and looks through a wire fence as we see the brother pick up a stone; then we hear the sound of a car alarm. The film cuts to an interior of the SUV as it drives along the familiar winding road, heading back to Tehran. There's a large cracked spot on the windshield. The beautiful understatement of scenes like this only heightens our sense of the injustice done by politics to art.
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