CLOSED CURTAIN
12:45 3:10 5:20 7:40 10:00
Through Tuesday, July 22
DIRECTED BY JAFAR PANAHI AND KAMBOZIA PARTOVI
Iranian dissident/filmmaker Jafar Panahi (THE WHITE BALLOON, THE MIRROR, THIS IS NOT A FILM) lives under house arrest and is banned from movie-making. CLOSED CURTAIN, his most recent non-film, made in secret, combines documentary and fictitious elements. A screenwriter goes into hiding with his dog after the regime declares dogs “impure” and bans them from walking in public (this is an actual law). In the darkened rooms of a seaside villa, a Pirandello-inspired drama unfurls with Panahi sometimes playing himself, acting out his most melancholy fantasies as both neighbors and strangers appear and disappear with eerie regularity, much as you would expect them to in any society in which the absurd has become the norm.
IRAN • 2013 • 106 MINS. • IN FARSI WITH ENGLISH SUBTITLES • VARIANCE FILMS
Reviews
“A multifaceted masterpiece. Panahi’s seemingly simple, straightforward narrative begins to fracture in increasingly astonishing ways…. A sublimely subconscious vision. The story of an artist who lives so completely with his muses and his characters…that he slips invisibly between reality and fantasy, sometimes inhabiting both spaces simultaneously. The journey is often challenging, but the rewards – heady, emotional, provocative and invigoration – are limitless. This was the best film I saw at Cannes.”
– Keith Uhlich, Time Out New York
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“A tender parable about life and art in bizarrely constricted circumstances. An ambiguous, allegorical film made by the world’s best-known banned director. Combines elements of thriller, domestic comedy and frame-breaking documentary realism, and offers a loving portrayal of ordinary Iranian society, as it functions below the surface under the theocracy.”
– Andrew O’Hehir, Salon
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“On one level, the film ... is a mischievous, Pirandellian entertainment. It is also an allegory, dark but not despairing, of the creative spirit under political pressure, and of the ways the imagination can be both a refuge and a place of confinement.”
– A.O. Scott, The New York Times
“Imagination and reality flow together in surprising and exhilarating ways.”
– Richard Brody, The New Yorker
“★★★★ Panahi’s films have become increasingly indistinguishable from his complex life, making them a challenging but thrilling experience.”
– Elizabeth Weitzman, Daily News