SFF 2023 REVIEW: No Bears – the camera as truth-teller
In No Bears, we are just as much aware that we are watching a film as we are of the action taking place. With knowledge of Panahi’s context, every shot feels dangerous, and you're constantly left wondering how he made it.
Image: No Bears (courtesy of Sydney Film Festival).
No Bears (نیست خرس) is the latest film by radical Iranian director Jafar Panahi. Panahi’s film follows a fictionalised version of himself secluded in a small village bordering Iran and Turkey. Banned from directing or leaving the country, he watches via Skype as his crew and actors put his film together. When he unwittingly puts himself in the centre of a love triangle, however, Panahi’s safety in the village is pushed to the brink.
Winner of the Special Jury Prize at the 2022 Venice Film Festival, and nominated for several other accolades, No Bears is a brilliant picture, and continues Panahi’s long tradition of blending documentary realism with fictionalised events. The border between reality and film blurs with each entry to his filmography, and Panahi uses these ambiguities to address important social and political issues within his context. Offside (آفساید 2006) told the story of a group of girls trying to sneak into a large soccer game that prohibited their entry by law, which involved Panahi actually breaking into a stadium with his cast and crew during a live match. The Mirror (آینه 1997) sees a little girl making her way home and getting lost in the process. Midway through the film, the actor seemingly gets fed up with being recorded and, turning to the camera, exclaims she is done with the movie and is going home, to which the camera crew then secretly record her actual trip home. And This is Not a Film (این فیلم 2011) is again Panahi turning the camera on himself to document his house arrest following charges of “colluding with the intention to commit crimes against the country’s national security and propaganda against the Islamic Republic” by the Islamic Revolutionary Court; he was under arrest for six years but banned from filmmaking for 20. Having his friends and family hold cameras and record his time inside, he was able to discreetly make a movie without breaking the law, which he then smuggled to Cannes via a USB drive hidden in a birthday cake.
This playful and subversive self-reflexive filming style is not unique to Panahi, however, and is actually a part of the longer history of Iranian Cinema. When the Ayatollah Khomeini took power over Iran in 1979, buildings across the country were burned, roughly 180 of those being cinemas. Films made under the American-appointed Shah were extremely Westernised and had strong Hollywood influences, and so movies made previously were seen by the new regime as a Western tool of oppression. Films were only allowed to continue being made thanks to works such The Cow (گاو 1969) by Dariush Mehrjui which was reportedly a favourite among Khomeini’s successor Ayatollah Khamenei, depicting what he considered a true representation of Iranian daily life within the confines of Islamic morality. As long as the films correlated with the Ayatollah’s morals, and wasn’t too feminist, anti-state, or pro-Western, cinema could continue. These strict regulations, combined with Islam’s history with representational art, meant that filmmakers had to think outside the box, and began breaking down the artifice of film itself. Abbas Kiarostami’s filmography, including Close-Up (کلوزآپ ، نمای نزدیک 1990) and the Koker trilogy, are very metatextual, with the process of making films just as much a part of it as the stories themselves.
In No Bears, we are just as much aware that we are watching a film as we are of the action taking place. With knowledge of Panahi’s context, every shot feels dangerous, and you're constantly left wondering how he made it.
At the same time, the camera itself is presented as a powerful force in of itself. Theories that Panahi took a photo of two lovers, one of them arranged to another man, brings the village to a standstill and then to its knees. In one sequence, Panahi is brought to confess before God. Instead, he asks to record his confession on a video camera. The camera, and film itself, is elevated to the status of religious objectivity and becomes a powerful tool for truth-telling.
Community is also a powerful theme that runs through a lot of Iranian cinema. From the aforementioned Cow, in which a village tries to restore the sanity off a man grieving the loss of his cow, to Kiarostami’s Where is the Friend's House (خانه دوست کجاست 1987) where a young boy is unintentionally led in circles by the misinformation of various people as he tries to return his friend’s homework, to Panahi’s own White Balloon (بادکنک سفيد 1995); a girl is continually stalled by those around her as she tries to retrieve a balloon.
Here, the village that Panahi is attempting to hide away in is upended by the arrival of the camera, to sometimes violent results. The customs of their peoples clash with the modern sensibilities of the director, leading to an undercurrent of tradition versus modernity.
The fit in question. Image: No Bears
Everything in No Bears worked well synergistically, the sound design being an especially stand out feature. The character of Ghanbar was a favourite of mine, housing Panahi and keeping him safe from the ire of both the authorities and the villagers, all the while consistently rocking great fits. He is constantly sporting cosy looking grandpa sweaters and knitted hats. A yellow and beige coloured jumper with red moving in opposite directions holds a special place in my heart and I need to cop it expeditiously.
For those curious, I would recommend checking this out, and hopefully it can be your entryway to the wonderful world of Iranian cinema.