The annual "Iranian Spring" in Orsay featured three Iranian films this year. Saw the last one yesterday, Persepolis.
It was a far away country, and the scenes in the film were not unfamiliar to many people. Those who were enthusiastically shouting reform slogans died in groups after another in vain. They were greeted by machine guns and rumbling tanks. After the revolution, the situation was only worse than before, and the once homely homeland has changed beyond recognition. I didn't experience this scene personally, but filled my chest with grief for those who fell like harvested crops without knowing their identities. How can people who did not grow up in such a country understand such hatred of the family and the country and the sorrow of separation?
Uncle Anoosh, who once thought he had won the fruits of victory but was later executed, told little Marjane about his experience of studying Marxism in the Soviet Union when he was determined to revolutionize and went through hardships in his youth. In the simplified and exaggerated narrative in order to attract children, he faces the sea and builds a pergola to look in the direction of the truth. It is completely the standard style of the model drama, and I can't help laughing. There are a lot of laughs in this movie, and I often have tears in my eyes when I laugh.
After he finished the story, he gave little Marjane a swan toy, "I made this before in prison, and now I give it to you." Later he was arrested again, and Marjane went to visit him, in a humble cell infested with cockroaches. Here, he gave her the same swan again, "This is what I made here, the uncle of the first one." It was also the last one he made.
The post-revolution regime’s control of the country has become more pervasive. If you want to listen to Western music, you must conduct underground transactions. If you wear Western-style clothes on the street, you will be caught by middle-aged women who are checking morality. When the police raid, someone will fall to their death by hiding. There is actually a way to avoid entering the house and searching for prohibited items: just give money. The feeling of deja vu, at least two generations of memories.
It is not easy to go abroad, and the business of forging stamps and passports is in great demand. The sister of the boss whom Marjane's father found was a member of a certain party. She was beautiful and brave, and she appeared in front of a strange man without wearing a headscarf; she was also executed in the end. But even if a party wins the power struggle, wouldn't the outcome be the same.
When she came to a free Europe, Marjane felt discrimination everywhere, and everything around her reminded her that she was different. After falling out with the boarding school and the family that took her in, she was desperate and fainted on the street. After being rescued, she chose to return to Iran. Who knows that fate will still drive her to leave the motherland again a few years later.
Marjane is lucky. She came from a high-class family and has many more opportunities than her peers. She has money to buy black market records. Her parents have the means to send her abroad. An upright and open-minded person, and a grandmother who always showed her the way at critical moments. After watching the movie, I still remember my grandmother's constant reminder: Sois intègre à toi-même!
Marjane, who was in her teens, went abroad for the first time and looked back to see her mother fainted in grief in her father's arms behind the glass door, when they were still young . Towards the end of the film, the parents and grandmother take Marjane to board the flight to France, and the mother firmly says: "This time you will leave Iran forever, this country is not for you, I will not allow you to come back!" There are wrinkles. Marjane never saw her grandmother again because a year later, "she was in permanent peace".
At the end of Marjane’s recollection, in the conversation between grandparents and grandchildren about the fragrance of jasmine, I held back tears and asked the people around me: “Grandma said how did she keep her breasts full?” “Rinse with cold water for ten minutes. You see this?”
Surroundings: "Iran Spring" is a cultural event organized by Orsay's Ferdowsi Association. According to the male leader, the initial purpose was to provide children from local Faye families with the opportunity to learn about Iranian culture, but these children left Orsay when they became adults or were busy with their careers , the number of participants dropped sharply, and the association adjusted its activities to a wider audience.
After the screening, it was time for the two directors to answer questions from the audience. Someone asked them to introduce good Iranian writers. The woman in charge said: Good Iranian writers are either in jail or have left Iran. Iranian readers cannot see all foreign works, because these works must be censored by the Ministry of Propagande before they can be imported. Similarly, Iranian writers cannot express their opinions directly, only "écrire entre les lignes".
The choice to play the film can also be seen as a nod to recent legislation banning the wearing of burqa in public places.
Also: The female teacher who taught us lexicology, logical semantics and linguistic typology is an Iranian, who is about a little older than the comic writer and director (that is, the main character prototype), and lives in Paris like the latter, and says that in the 1980s When I first came to France alone, I didn't even speak French. I don't know how she will feel when she sees this movie.
After leaving the cinema, someone expressed surprise at the candid remarks of the two leaders, because their Iranian friends dare not express their attitude in public even in France, otherwise they may be banned from stepping on Iranian soil again at any time. So I remembered that a Mexican classmate who was also studying in the Chinese Department of Langues O' said that the teachers there were very careful, even in France.
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