ABSTRACT
Chapter 2 brings a reflection on Jafar Panahi’s forbidden tetralogy, This Is Not a Film (co-directed by Mojtaba Mirtahmasb, 2011), Closed Curtain (Pardeh, co-directed by Kambuzia Partovi, 2013), Taxi Tehran (Taxi, 2015) and Three Faces (Se rokh, 2018), all of which have come into being despite (or as a result of) the 20-year ban from making films imposed on him by the Iranian authorities. Forcibly shot in enclosed spaces, these films are marked by a relentless scrutiny of their restrained locations and of the director himself, turned into reluctant protagonist of his non-films. In such restrictive circumstances, Panahi’s irrepressible creative vein is channelled towards bringing to the fore, with radical realism, film’s inherent conundrum between its recording and artistic properties.
