The Various Forms Of Resistance In Iranian Cinema

Iran has always had a legacy of challenging the existing the status quo, be it with regards to politics, society or culture. Iran waged a revolution against the modernising Pahlavi regime to establish a conservative clerical government under Khomeini. Iranians have projected various forms of resistance to the onslaught of colonialism. Hamid Dabashi says that without these forms of groundbreaking initiatives or resistance, Iranian subject would have been historically denied or colonially modulated (Dabashi 2001:213). These modes of resistance have given a historical agency to the Iranian subject. Power narratives of social criticisms through Persian poetry were the foremost forms of resistance in the cultural production. These Persian poetry

It was from the 1960s that Iranian cinema became the forefront of cultural creativity with movies such as The Cow and Night of the Hunchback. Richard Tapper said that The Cow started a genre of allegorical ‘protest’ films(Tapper 2002:21). As Foucault would say where there is power, there is resistance and yet, or rather consequently, this resistance is never in a position of exteriority in relation to power(Foucault 1976:95). One such resistance that was supported by Foucault was during his visit to Iran at the advent of Iranian Revolution. This was a classic example of a powerful, modernist Shah overthrown by the cleric who himself took the throne to become all powerful. Hence power and resistance are synonymous. This same resistance can be seen in the constant tussle and negotiation between the state controlled authorities and creative film makers- Mohsen Makhmalbaf, Jafar Panahi, Sameera Makhmalbaf, Tamireh Milani,Bani Etemad, Berza’i’, Abbas Kiriastomi and so on. Naficy(2011a) claims that these rebel film makers have always tried to ‘trick’ the censorship with use of allegory and metaphors to convey various messages through their movies to counter the Islamic hegemony under

Shahla Laliji(2002) says that a film maker’s attitude towards woman is a criteria for judging the cinematographic piece of work. She is very skeptical about the unrealistic usage of women’s images in cinema has made a caricature of her real self, reducing women to a second class citizen whose main duty was to stay within the four corners of the walls and not fall into an unchaste life.(Tapper 2002:216). Lor Girl(1933) was one of the foremost Iranian movie about the independence of a girl was a success. Fifteen years later, a movie was released again in Iran. By this time gradually, the quality of film farsi, gradually started to deteriorate, showcasing women in a disgraceful manner.(Nejad 2010). Displaying of female bodies and sexuality became gained a lot of money to these films. The hejab was removed and showing of skin became a fashion and Shah’s modernisation policy supported these projections. Thus these ‘unchaste dolls’ came to dominate the silver screen(Lalaji 2002). These negative images of women were countered with projection of the good and chaste images of women by some other film makers,