"...it is very hard to understand what he meant by that statement as..."
Nobody Knows About Persian Cats - A Review
By: Ferri Tafreshi
January 2010
“Nobody Knows About Persian Cats”, directed by Bahman Ghobadi and co-written by Roxana Saberi and Hossein Mortezaiyan Abkenar, had its world premiere at Cannes last year where it won the Special Jury Prize in the Un Certain Regard category. The film illustrates the hardship and frustration that many Iranian talents have to deal with for pursuing their craft, namely music. It depicts the environment in which these people work. It is in some respects a movie about restless spirit.
The main characters, Ashkan Koshanejad and Negar Shaghaghi, are well-known musicians to those who have followed the Iranian Indie rock genre, a.k.a. alternative music. Their fans recognize them from “Take It Easy Hospital” and “FONT”. One could claim that this movie is in fact a semi-documentary in which the cast of characters is made up of ordinary musicians going through all the things that rock musicians go through in the Iranian underground scene. While the movie’s only professional actor, the self-proclaimed Marlon Brandon of Iran, Hamed Behdad, brings life to the script through his energy and charisma, it is the efforts of the two main musicians, Koshanejad and Shaghaghi, that are the focus of the film. We watch as they put together a band, arrange a concert and obtain forged passports for some of their band members.
There are many challenges: relying on strangers they do not know or trust, modifying the composition of the band in order to be able to release an album, and above just being an artist in Iran. For example, in order to get approval for a concert or an album, a band has to submit its music and lyrics to the Ministry of Islamic Guidance where it is evaluated by judges. To no one’s surprise, approval does not come often: unsuitable words, grammatical errors, solo female singers, shaved heads, "unsuitable" personal grooming, "superfluous" stage movements, too much reliance on electric guitars, or lyrics that declare love for anyone but God are all impediments to realizing an Iranian artist’s dreams. It is a wonder that Farzad Golpayegani, the progressive rock guitarist, got a permission for his first album, though it was later revoked.
What this movie demonstrates is that the current environment is not a healthy one. Musicians want to create their music and live their lives, but the authoritarian society they must traverse imposes close horizons on creative minds made for distant journeys far exceeding the tolerance of rigid social structures. This is nothing new, of course, but seeing real people we know going through it is wrenching.
The movie does not have a happy ending. The main character, just before going onto an underground stage jumps out of a window in order to escape the guards and dies (a similar event occurred in Tehran).
Director Ghobadi has done a good job in convincing these talents to work with him and to take personal risks. These
risks are unevenly awarded through the success the movie as many of the characters are still in Iran and did not share the award. In an interview, Ghobadi claims that he told the casts not to be worried should something happen as he would be there for them, but it is very hard to understand what he meant by that statement as he himself is no longer in Iran. There are maybe stories behind the curtain that are not told to the general public.
The movie is not without shortcomings. Soroush Lashkari's appearance (he is the artist known as Hichkas) does not fit anywhere in the movie, and it feels like that portion was an add-on, no connection to the rest. His lines are less consistent with the rest of the script and one wonders who actually added this bit. We can only speculate: perhaps Lashkari's appearance was a compromise made by the director to make use of his music.
Another point to ponder about the movie its name. It is very hard to connect the dots between underground music and Persian cats. Is the viewer to find out the answer? For me, this odd title reminds me somewhat of a quote by the 1952 Nobel Peace Prize winner, Albert Schweitzer1:
“There are two means of refuge from the miseries of life: music and cats.”
A number of people also speculate that “Nobody Knows About Persian Cats” is a copy of “Not An Illusion”2 by Torang Abedian, released 2009. The story of that movie is: Sara, a 21-year-old Iranian woman, wants to be a singer. But according to the rules in Iran, women cannot sing solo in public. But Sara, a champion gymnast before she becomes disabled in an accident, is determined to make her goal come true. So she joins a band called Piccolo as a backing singer. The movie follows Sara in her battle over the years as she struggles to achieve her dream in a repressive society full of rigid ministries of Rightness This and Islamic Guidance That.
There is another documentary “Sounds of Silence – Underground Music in Tehran”3by Amir Hamz and Mark Lazarz which had its world premiere at the Tribeca Film Festival in Manhattan, New York, on 26 April 2006. It touches on the same topic as Ghobadi’s movie, offering a view inside Tehran’s burgeoning music scene shot through the eyes of young musicians and their followers. It salutes their ongoing struggle with the ministry of Culture and Islamic Guidance which meticulously scrutinizes (and often censors) all forms of art. “Sounds of Silence” offers a look at the delicate balance in these young musicians’ lives, between their musical endeavors and the rocky path that is in store for them as progress and conservative traditionalism clash in modern Tehran.
Whether “Nobody Knows About Persian Cats” is a copy of “Not An Illusion” probably depends on who you ask. They all depict the underground scene; they both use real musicians. In any type of documentary, the same type of environment would have to be reused. “Nobody Knows About Persian Cats” is not a true documentary as it is only based on real people and events. And so even if it is borrowing a theme, an actual event there, it yet serves its purpose in presenting these musicians and their culture of an imposed hardship to the rest of the world. It is worth noticing that Ghobadi was criticized by the well-known director Kiarustami for his decision to make the movie without a permission. Mr. Kiarustami’s critic had nothing to do with the movie itself.
The overall impression of the movie is that it is effective, its message clear and strong. Its cinematography thanks to Turaj Mansuri is excellent. The main question is what will happen next? Could the film be misused by a government interested in cracking down these elements in the society? Regardless of that answer, the movie provides an opportunity for ordinary people to get to see how things on the ground actually are.
1 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albert_Schweitzer
