Debating Fort Hood and Islam
Saturday, December 5, 2009 - by: Musefresco
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The real persons behind the prism of their personas
- by: Musefresco
Posted in the Category: Hana, Iran, Iranian Cinema, Mohsen, SamiraNo Comments »
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If you are very successful at what you do and espouse a certain cause it’s a given that you will have enemies. The Makhmalbafs are accused of selling out to the West and have been under constant criticism in Iran for making movies only with the western audience in mind. They also have to contend with the accusation of encouraging nepotism and setting a wrong precedent. In keeping with the totalitarian society they live in, multiple attempts have been made on their lives by people who don’t really approve of their ideas. Mohsen Makhmalbaf has survived two assassination attempts whereas Samira had to endure the horror of her crew members being injured in a bomb attack while filming her last film in Afghanistan. Hana managed to escape from the clutches of her would-be abductors while filming The Joy of Madness.
Mohsen has been compared with Russian cinematic luminaries like Sergei Eisenstein and Dziga Vertov and Cuba’s Tomás Gutiérrez Alea for creating a unique cinematic style and narrative of the revolution that he was a part of. The comparisons may be flattering but Eisenstein for all his genius was also a toady who left no stone unturned to make up to someone like Stalin. Mohsen’s detractors often alluded to his active support of the now much maligned Islamic revolution in its heydays and his volte-face when he could not get his way from the new leaders of the revolution. Mohsen benefitted much from the Islamic revolution as he started watching and studying films on the whole library of films in possession of the government to which he had exclusive access as he was working for them as a propagandist of sorts. He is supposed to have filmed Boycott, a film in which a very young Majid Majidi (one of Iran’s most acclaimed filmmakers) played the main lead, in one of Iran’s much dreaded prisons amid all the atrocious torture and interrogation, casting actual leftist prisoners in roles they were forced to enact. Most of these prisoners were bumped off soon after the movie was completed. During the initial years of the revolution, he is alleged to have hailed the repression of women, the Iranian Left and students.
Samira Makhmalbaf, who has tried to kill herself a couple of times as she was not satisfied with herself and the world around her, is equally known for her imperiousness besides her ingenuity. Hana’s documentary on how Samira made that movie in Afghanistan called At Five in the Afternoon can be used to refer to her hauteur and how she is ruthless about getting what she wants. She is now the most famous among the Makhmalbas and her father has seen to it that she reached where she is now. Some people perceive her as a manipulative control freak that makes her egregious at times.
Little is known about the personal lives of the other Makhmalbafs as it is not widely reported. Hana is someone who will be much reported about in the future. The little that people do know about her is that she is trying to carve out a niche for herself by coming out of the shadow of her sister.
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Monday, November 30, 2009 - by: Musefresco
Posted in the Category: MakhmalbafsNo Comments »
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The movies and the Makhmalbafs
Thursday, November 19, 2009 - by: Musefresco
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Good filmmakers are hard to come by, but if your whole family is in the business of making films, there is a possibility that you just might turn out to be one. That seems to be happening in the case of the Makhmalbafs, the first family of Iranian cinema. This illustrious family of filmmakers has been in the forefront, making the world take notice of Iranian cinema.
The paterfamilias of this family is the incomparable Mohsen Makhmalbaf who, at the young age of fifteen, formed an underground Islamic militia group. At seventeen, he was arrested for trying to disarm a policeman. The young Mohsen was released after four and a half years in prison, following the overthrow of the Shah in I979. Using his time in prison to educate himself, he read widely on a whole range of subjects, thus beginning to introspect on life and Iranian society. He soon distanced himself from political activities and went on to work towards enriching Iranian culture as he felt that more than anything else, it was the lack of a proper culture that was afflicting Iranian society the most. Starting out as a scriptwriter for other filmmakers, he eventually made his first feature Tobeh Nosuh in 1983. Kandahar, a film he made in 2001, is one of his most popular films which fetched him the Federico Fellini Prize from UNESCO. The film deals with life in Afghanistan under the Taliban. Initially ignored when it was first shown at Cannes in May 2001, the film was appreciated a lot after the events of September 11, 2001. It was selected by Time magazine as one of the 100 best movies of all time.
Mohsen is the incumbent president of the Asian Film Academy and was named the official spokesman for Mir-Hossein Mousavi’s election campaign abroad in connection with the recent Iranian presidential elections. He has been very critical of how the election was conducted. It’s no wonder that most of his films are either ignored or banned in Iran. He is the founder of Afghan Children’s Education Movement, an association which promotes literacy, culture and the arts among the Afghans. It runs a film school which trains actors and directors for the emerging Afghan cinema.
The matriarch of the Makhmalbaf household is Marziyeh Meshkini, who is an award winning filmmaker in her own right. Her first film, The Day I Become a Woman fetched her three awards at the Venice International Film Festival. Stray Dogs, her second film, received two awards in Venice in 2003 again. She had also written the script for her daughter Hana’s award winning film, “Buddha Collapsed out of Shame”.
A famous scene from KandaharThe beauteous Samira Makhmalbaf is the oldest among the three Makhmalbaf siblings. She made her directorial debut at seventeen with “The Apple” and became the youngest director participating in the official section of the Cannes Film Festival. None other than Jean Luc Godard had heaped praises on her on different occasions for her first film. She received a Special Jury award for her second film, “The Blackboard” in 2000. A year later, she again won the Special Jury award for her third film, “At Five in the Afternoon”. In 2003, she was named as one of the best 40 directors in the world along with fellow Iranian filmmaker Abas Kiorastami. Apart from being a talented filmmaker, this articulate Persian princess of cinema is a thinking man’s sex symbol of sorts with her flawless alabaster skin and radiant beauty. On many occasions, she had upstaged even celebrated Hollywood sex goddesses like Sharon Stone with her serene aura and mediagenic presence.
Hana Makhmalbaf is the youngest of the Makhmalbaf siblings. She made a documentary film called Joy of Madness when she was 14 which was premiered at the Venice Film Festival. It received three international film awards. Her first feature film, Buddha Collapsed out of Shame received the prestigious Crystal Bear at the Berlin Film Festival along with the Special Peace Prize last year.
Maysam Makhmalbaf is the only son of the Makhmalbaf couple, and brother to Samira and Hana. Maysam, apart from directing a documentary called How Samira made the Blackboard, has produced Hana’s first film. He has not done much in filmmaking yet but one can rest assured that he will excel at it like the rest of his family in the days to come. Iran’s cinema is in safe hands for now.
You can visit their website at http://www.makhmalbaf.com
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Ha Jin and his literature
- by: Musefresco
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