WINGED WORDS

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.