On Cannes 2016 and the Iranian Cinema

It seems that recent achievements in the Iranian cinema have dethroned some long-lasting stereo-typical Iranian products in representing the country in international fora. In my conversations with people of different nationalities in the last 2-3 years, I can hardly remember a dialogue in which the Iranian cinema was not mentioned.

As someone without any expertise in the film industry, I have two modest (and perhaps crude) observations about cinema.

There seems to be an antifragile aspect to cinema. The more you suppress it and put it under constraints, the more it thrives. That might explain why some of the best movies I have seen were made in an era during which the directors’ political views were suppressed or were dominated by the opposing political ideologies, or were about an era during which individual and political freedoms did not fare very well.

The second observation, which to a certain degree flows from the first one, is that the best movies of all times were made by the artists belonging to the left side of the political spectrum (Marxists, communists, lefties or whatever label you prefer). These movies are exceptionally effective at casting some light on certain genuine concerns and poignant aspects of human life which cannot be captured by the narrow calculus of an economist or a policy maker. But the caveat is that a movie is probably the last thing by which a policy maker or an economist should be inspired. Though these genres of movies and their artists are incredibly powerful at highlighting ‘some’ problematic aspects of the status quo or reality, they often are as hopeless as economists or policy makers in explaining what to do about it.

Anyway, off-topic basta! I just wanted to congratulate the Iranian artists on their recent success and I hope that the Iranian cinema will continue to contribute to human civilization and its wealth of cultural heritage.

I take my hat off to these Iranian artists and salute their achievement.