Jafar Panahi | Hidden / 2020

voice behind a sheet

by Douglas Messerli

 

Jafar Panahi (director) Hidden / 2020 [18 minutes]

 

As Panahi languishes in jail, sentenced now for a period of six years simply for daring to speak the truths of his subjects through his films, it is important that we perceive this film as actually being “directed”—in the sense of intention, subject, and method and, in part, even the cinematography—by two women, his daughter Solmaz Panahi and her close friend, actor and theater director Shabnam Yousefi. Jafar is simply brought along for the ride (and the drive) with the hopes that he name and his camera might bring off some sort of miracle that might free the young girl who is the subject of this film from the Iranian authorities and the misogynist male family male members who control her behavior.

     Solmaz has been living in Paris where she last saw her friend Shabnam who wasn’t even aware that Solmaz had returned to Iran. The first few moments of this short film are devoted to the women attempting to catch up on news, a discussion quickly cut off by Jafar, who needs to establish what the situation is and where they are going.

      Solmaz has long been wanting to direct a play involving only Iranian women as actors and theatrical creators, and has been working on the drama successful. But she needs a voice, a singer to weave the elements together and as felt she has found one in a rural spot of Iran in a girl with a lovely soprano preternatural voice, Tarife Karimian.

      She is hopeful that through bringing the well-known film-maker Jafar to the village that perhaps a shift in the manner of 3 Faces wherein simply the fact of filming an Azerbaijani actress in a sense freed her from parental control, even if she is now ostracized by her community, as they find her living in a house with two other outlawed female actors.

      In fact, nothing of that sort occurs in the work. The singer who has not been permitted to perform in Solmaz’s work by her brothers, is now even further banned from singing where she might be heard in the village, particularly in the company of males.

 

     Although this isolated village is far more accessible and westernized than the Azerbaijan village where Jafar’s 3 Faces was filmed, Somaz must still obtain permission to speak to the girl from her mother as well as permission to enter their house.

       When they finally are allowed in with their digital cameras, the girl is not to be seen, hidden behind a sheet hung over the back of the house. She will sing for them and allow herself to be recorded only if she remains invisible—certainly a strong metaphor in itself. Women in this culture, as Shabnam reminds us, are often even allowed to eat at the same table with their brothers or fathers even today, loud noise or girl laughter frowned upon. Their lives remain controlled by family and religious leaders even a country as modernized as contemporary Iran. Somaz reminds us that genital cutting, outlawed throughout the country, still occurs in such isolated spots.

 

     Seizing up the situation, Jafar suggests that further involvement is nearly impossible. Without speaking the words, Jafar makes it clear that he feels it is time return to their car and travel back home. But Shabnam and Solmaz continue to focus their camera and eyes on the sheet as the beautiful voice of Tarife Karimian sings an indeterminable song as if she were a caged and covered cannery who still trills for the joy and beauty of life.

       The film totally makes its point in the total invisibility of the girl with such a remarkable talent. This, I would argue, is not Jafar’s film but a film made for and by the women of Iran. Here Jafar Panahi plays the important roles of imprimatur and audience.

 

Los Angeles, September 6, 2022

Reprinted from World Cinema Review (September 2022).