Promised a window into the real Iran, that is exactly what a packed audience at London’s Renoir Cinema were treated to last night in three short films full of the warmth, humanity and charm of the individual characters they featured. Executive produced by Maziar Bahari with the backing of the BBC World Service Trust, the shorts depicted a vibrant, chaotic city reflected in Tehran’s traffic-choked streets.
All three gave a unique perspective on daily life, gently poking fun at peculiarly Iranian restrictions on society whilst celebrating the natural humour of their subjects.
The central character in Behind the Wheel of Life takes her son to school, curses women drivers, sings along to her car radio and remonstrates with another taxi (“oh, I’m sorry you drove into the back of my car”) but finds the most peace driving the streets at night when the city is finally quiet.
Abbas, a motorcycle taxi driver in Of Men and Motorcycles (“taxi, free air-conditioning”) dreams of a steady job to support his family, but is forced to live day-to-day with the other riders, dodging police who can confiscate their bikes for not having a licence. But it is the ingenuity, humour and solidarity of the riders – who club together to buy Abbas a new bike after his is stolen – that really makes the film.
A cast of characters in My City Pizza got the biggest laughs of the night. A member of the morality police decries pizza as the citizenry’s new obsession, (“I like sheep’s head and trotters”) but an elderly man riding a taxi thinks that if pizza is essentially bread and tomato, “I’ve been eating it all my life”. The owner of the popular “Godfather” pizzeria attempts to distil the complex nature of Iranians themselves: “our features our Italian, our tastes American … and our bodies Indian” and insists that “Tehran has the tastiest pizzas in the world!”
As self-confessed Iranophile Jon Snow observed during a Q&A following the screenings, the films demonstrate both the challenges and opportunities of daily life in Iran. Maziar Bahari added that “nothing is impossible, everything is possible”, which is a welcome attitude; the importance of understanding Iran on such a human level cannot be underestimated.
The films will be showing at the Manchester Cornerhouse tonight, and at arts and cultural festivals in Iran.
