我发觉很多伊朗的电影都很好看,批判现实主义,有深度, 比那些纯娱乐片强多了。

这是一种Journey 式的电影, 一夜之间人生在一个15岁女孩在德黑兰的流浪中展开。的确很有味道。

强权之下出思想。像美国这样的地方没有什么思想,就是感官刺激。

美国人看电影的 taste 也不咋地。 我的学生看中国的电影, 只喜欢卧虎藏龙之类的荒唐武打片。

Allen Bloom 早就写了 The Closing of the American Mind

(The Closing of the American Mind, by Allan Bloom (published 1987 ISBN 5551868680), describes "how higher education has failed democracy and impoverished the souls of today's students."

The book's lengthy introduction delineates two kinds of "openness". Bloom criticizes the openness of cultural relativism, in which he claims:

"the point is not to correct the mistakes and really be right; rather it is not to think you are right at all."
In line with Plato, whom he quotes periodically throughout the book, Bloom believes that it is incumbent on the individual to search for truth in order to have any hope of a higher life. He believes it is the unique obligation of the university to point students in this very direction.

Like Tocqueville and Nietzsche, Bloom asserts that democracy--by valuing the opinion of each citizen equally--is not an environment in which genius excels. It is therefore the university that needs to lead the lost art of living the good life.

Contemporary critical reaction to the book was politically polarised, but many of those hostile to Bloom's conclusions acknowledged the value of the book's recapitulation of the history of political philosophy.



March 30, 2001

Fresh but raw look at adolescence

By LIZ BRAUN

The Girl In The Sneakers starts off with adolescent Iranians walking together in a park, flirting a little and talking about the future with plenty of deep, teenage philosophy.
It's a sweet scene. Then the Islamic morals police round up the young man and woman -- they are, after all, not related to each other -- and they wind up at a Tehran jail.

Furious parents on both sides make sure that the girl, Tadai (Pegah Ahangarani has already won several awards for her portrayal), and the boy, Aideen (Majid Hajizade), will never see each other again. Just to be on the safe side, Tadai must submit to an internal examination to make sure she is still a virgin. Western viewers commence hyperventilating.

The next day, Tadai decides to walk away from her life, running off from school to spend the day drifting around Tehran, stopping only to try to reach Aideen by phone.

She is a sheltered, middle-class girl, and plenty of what she sees is completely new to her. Boys watch her; men pretend to protect her; women chide her. Almost everyone asks her where she is going and what she is doing.

Eventually, she encounters a gypsy woman (Akram Mohammadi) being set-upon by men in the street. The woman and her little boy -- and some drugged, borrowed baby being carted around on the woman's back so most strangers will leave her alone -- live more or less on the street, and they take Tadai in to protect her. Or maybe to sell her or hold her for ransom. The older woman isn't sure yet.

Tadai is eventually reunited with Aideen, but nothing goes as planned. At the end of The Girl In The Sneakers, Tadai figures out that it's time to go home.

Like many current Iranian films, The Girl In The Sneakers is operating on several levels at once, providing an obvious metaphor for the status of women in Iran today at the same time that it makes fun of adolescent rebellion -- and also shows the huge and ugly features of adult life.

The movie is far from perfect, but Pegah Ahangarani's performance is the glue that keeps the whole thing together.

Many Iranian filmmakers use children to tell their stories in order to get around strict censorship laws, and the result is often performances and storytelling of amazing freshness.

The Girl In The Sneakers is in Farsi with English subtitles.

(This film is rated PG)

Daughters of the Sun

这个电影有点张艺谋的味道。

July 29, 2004 -- BEAUTIFUL and bleak are the two words that best describe the Iranian drama “Daughters of the Sun,” directed and written by Maryam Shahriar.
The beauty lies in its look: breathtaking panoramic shots of a harsh, unforgiving landscape, as well as heartbreaking close-ups of the film’s tragic heroine, a young woman named Aman, played to perfection by Altinay Ghelich Taghani.

The bleakness has to do with Aman’s life: Shunned by her family, her head shaved to make her look like a boy and thus get paid more, the young woman is forced into a job weaving rugs, her salary to be sent to her parents.

She works in a factory run by a nasty old guy who beats her and keeps her locked in the building day and night.

Aman’s male look is so convincing that a female co-worker wants to marry her.

There’s little dialogue in this gem of a movie, but little is needed. Aman’s anguished face – which recalls Maria Falconetti in “The Passion of Joan of Arc” — conveys all the information we need.

还有一个电影叫 Narges, 跟印度的那个《流浪者》异曲同工。一个小偷想自新不成, 不被社会接纳, 最后还是去偷。