ABSTRACT
In studying films from Iran, it is useful to have some knowledge of the society which produced them, the social, political, and cultural contexts, including the make-up of the film industry itself. An interesting complication in the reception of Iranian cinema is the different critical reactions to it outside Iran. The films of many Iranian filmmakers such as Ashgar Fahadi, Abbas Kiarostami, and Mohsen Makhmalbaf have received near universal praise among US and European critics, academics, and the audience for arthouse cinema. Jafar Panahi is one of the most influential filmmakers in Iran, originally associated with the second Iranian New Wave cinema of the 1980s, which was influenced by European arthouse and experimental cinema. The representation of the family is almost indivisible from the reading of A Separation as a political film, one which explores the conflicts in Iranian society, often through metaphor and symbolism. Taxi Tehran weaves references to the different functions of film throughout its narrative.
