Last
year the Leipzig Festival’s retrospective
“the prophets-Iranian Documentary Film
makers” presented the history of Iranian
documentary films using eighteen examples. It
is not merely the international success of
Iranian feature films over at least the last
decade which has taken the limelight away from
the country’s documentary tradition,
responsibility for this is also shared by the
censor, and the spite changing decision-makers
many documentary films have remained under
lock and key.
Last
years retrospective contained the 1982 T.V
production “Tenancy”-an accusatory social
snapshot which following its broadcast led to
intense political debate. Although its
producer, Ebrahim Mokhtari, is one of Iran’s
foremost documentary film makers, his
agreeable, unspectacular works have remained
largely unnoticed elsewhere in the world-while
in his own country many of his films have been
locked away. Earlier this year Ebarim Mokhtari
completed his latest film, “Mollah Khadijeh
and her children”, part of the series
“Children of Iran” commissioned by the
Iranian state T.V broadcaster IRIB.
The
special show organized in Leipzig this year
marks the first time that Ebrahim Mokhtari has
been presented at an international festival
with a selection of his films.his works focus
on peasant women carrying water, fishermen
returning home with small catches, landlords
and their tenants who can know longer afford
the rent, and an old teacher who tries to
interest children in the alphabet.
Mokhtari
brings us closer to normal people by studying
the movements, dexterity and gestures they use
to hold their ground in the surroundings where
they have been born or ended up. Fool of
oriental respect for the word, Mokhtari makes
sparing use of spoken language (apart from in
Tenancy). The reason for this might be a wish
to avoid the interpretations which result from
unambiguous verbal statements and which could
be twisted ad infinitum. Ebarhim Mokhtari has
no time for interviews breathlessly edited
statements or conclusions suitable for quick
verbalization. His film work is anything but
“preposition cinema”.
Ebrahim
Mokhtari achieves clarity by a respectfully
persistent attention for people with no social
power and a visual appraisal, which unites
individuality and togetherness in a poetic
flow of images. In” Baluchi bread “and
“the fisherman’s journey”, Mokhtari
shows us everyday crafts _from monotonous corn
– reaping and drinking-water bangs being
laboriously mounted to the vigorous casting of
fish bait. Mokhtari integrates individual into
the groups by multiplying and editing these
constant, repetitive movements one after the
other. His aim is to show us not isolated
individual but rather forsaken communities of
exploited people who have been abandoned to
fait for far too long_ above all in rural
districts. Defiance is only observed among the
town-dwellers in “tenancy” is that why
documentary films about urban life have been
so rare in Iranian filmmaking?
The
authenticity of Ebrahim Mokhtari’s films is
contained in the maker’s attitude. He allows
the people and himself enough scope and time,
creates closeness and trust, and observes with
the patients of a fisherman without forming an
opinion. Mokhtari is no portrait-painter
instead he builds up little stories from
series of precise observations, which tell of
the harsh living conditions. And if you close
your eyes, you can hear a story of wind and
tools.
Outstanding
for their great sensitivity vis-à-vis other
people, Ebrahim Mokhtari’s films condense
their everyday life into harmonious poetry
reminiscent of narrative painting. Yet the
appearance of harmless everyday poetry is
deceptive. The massage of Ebrahim Mokhtari’s
films becomes apparent as soon as we immerse
ourselves in the story and spend a few moments
sharing in the way of life captured on film.
(Homage
of Ebrahim Mokhtari at the 40.international
Leipzig Film Festival1997. page
103, the catalog of festival).
