People usually
go to the cinema for entertainment, especially when it comes to Hollywood
movies, but when I went to watch Ben Affleck's Argolast week I knew beforehand that it was going to be a
rather painful experience. Temptation outweighed the agony, I'm afraid.
I had prepared
myself. "It's a film, not a documentary," I had tried to remember.
But the claim that it was "based on a true story" created greater
expectations in me. I didn't try to fact-check – although others have
done with some
disappointment – but other things caught my attention.
First, it was
Affleck's desperate attempt to make a film set in Iran without having been either there in person or able to
shoot within its borders. Having chosen to film in Turkey instead, Affleck has
done his best – well, the best you can when making a film about Iran by
shooting in a neighbouring country.
To be honest, the locations
are not too bad. Buildings are similar to those in Iran, the houses are not
that different, the bazaar is quite like the actual shopping centre in south
Tehran. Banners, placards and signs are in Persian and many characters actually
speak the language, although some with accents.
There are silly mistakes,
however. In one scene, for example, the protagonist Tony Mendez (Affleck) says
"salam" at the end of his conversation with an Iranian official. Salam means hello in Persian, not goodbye.
Minor mistakes aside, the film
takes a black and white view towards Iranians, like many other western films
about Iran. It portrays them as ugly, poor, strictly religious, fanatical and
ignorant – almost in line with the young revolutionaries behind the
hostage-taking at the US embassy in Tehran after the 1979 Islamic revolution,
which the film is about. The only nice Iranian in the film is the Canadian
ambassador's maid.
The whole experience is like
asking an Iranian who has never been to the US to make a film (let's say in
Cuba) about the Columbine high school massacre. You'll probably end up watching
a film in which all Americans are crazy, have a gun at home and are ready to
shoot their classmates.
As I was leaving the cinema
with my Iranian friend (and I assume we were the only Iranians in the room), we
were cautious not to speak Persian too loud to be noticed. "Oh my God,
they're Iranians," we assumed others would say, as if we were from Mars.
But what troubles me most is
how the film reminds me of Iran's history, of how a group of my countrymen
betrayed Iran, took a group of people hostage and brought pain and trauma to
another country for 444 days.
For years at school I was
taught that the hostage-taking of American diplomats was an act of resistance,
heroism on behalf of revolutionaries showing their anger at US interference in
Iran's internal affairs.
Argo suddenly wipes out all that revolutionary rhetoric and
reminds me of the other side of the story. It shows the yellow ribbons in the
streets of Washington DC, the anguish and pain caused by the incident, and it
makes me regret what happened more than 30 years ago.
Affleck's film may depict an
Iran I hardly recognise but it is a bitter reminder of how young
revolutionaries and their leaders failed their country, putting Iran in a
crisis that has had consequences for its people to this day.
In reaction to the film, some
of the hostage-takers have defended what happened after 1979. But Argo should
make them reflect and at least face up to the reality.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/iran-blog/2012/nov/13/argo-iranians-ben-affleck?CMP=twt_gu
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