I am so glad this happened. The language barrier often means filmmakers as important as Jafar Panahi don’t do the talk show circuit. In fact, I don’t think he ever has before. But It was Just an Accident is nominated for everything – and winning everything – and the irony is not lost on anyone. So he has been in America, racking up awards, traveling with his marvelous interpreter (I can’t believe I got to meet him and his regular interpreter, Sheida Dayani. Seriously. If you’ve been around a while, you know what this means.) And so kudos to Jon Stewart for making space, for having Jafar Panahi on, perhaps introducing this amazing artist to millions of new people in the States. And people can discover his films now, if they weren’t aware. I love a lot about this interview. How Jon Stewart sort of slowed himself down, so Dayani could translate (it’s so right brain left brain what she is doing) – and then waiting, listening. They are talking about big subjects, not questions with “yes” or “no” answers.
Their discussion is wide-ranging, the quiet space around it, the sense of the audience just riveted and silent, taking in his words. Stewart asked about Panahi’s prison time – and in general what is going on in Iran – (not in the last couple of days but the last decades). They also talk about Panahi’s latest film It Was Just an Accident. (I loved Stewart shouting out This Is Not a Film! (I reviewed at the NYFF in 2011). They talk about freedom – freedom of artists, freedom of expression – and the different ways Iranian people have been resisting, especially in a country where resistance is literally not allowed.
I really loved the point Stewart made about It Was Just an Accident in terms of the characters having doubts. They were tortured and imprisoned but they still wrestled with doubt, so when they do … what they do (if you haven’t seen it … see it) … you might think they’d have a catharsis of cruelty, taking revenge. But instead, in their different ways, they worry that they might have gotten the wrong guy, and that maybe … this isn’t right somehow, what we’re doing? Totalitarian governments ban a lot of things, and one thing that is never allowed is doubt. You see this in the brainwashed partisan followers too. I yearn, I wait, for signs of cognitive dissonance, for doubt to chip away at the wall of certainty. Lord help me if I stop doubting things, if I stop interrogating myself, if I don’t question the morals and ethics of a given situation, regardless of the wider circumstances. Totalitarian systems are designed to keep out doubt. You as a citizen are not allowed to express – or even feel – doubt. It’s designed, too, to glue you to the wall of one side. (What’s amazing to me is watching people choose to glue themselves to the wall of one side. It’s a little alarming!)
But when you allow doubt, you allow critical thinking, you allow other alternatives, and – as Panahi points out – ultimately what happens is … you see other people as people. Which shouldn’t be a rarity but here we are.
After worrying about Panahi’s fate for almost 2 decades at this point, I am still not used to the sight of him out and about here on American soil, let alone getting to MEET him. I highly recommend this interview!
Dissident artists help us stay strong. If they can do it, we can. We are made of stronger stuff than we realize.
I am so happy he’s okay, but I feel the weight of his burden when he talks about his friends still in prison. Thank God for art.
And see It Was Just an Accident!
Thanks for this. And thank god for Jon. My nephew worked with him for 15 years and has only good things to say about him. He’s smart. Articulate. Funny. And you’re right: he listens. Better than most people. I don’t watch him as often as I should so am glad to find him here. Such an important interview. So well done.
It’s a different kind of listening when there’s an interpreter – it takes some getting used to! I thought he handled it beautifully – and the interpreter is aces!