Modern ZYNema: Cinematographer Amin Jafari on “No Bears” (2022)
Modern ZYNema is a showcase of recent additions to the great cinematic psyop, created by Darius Csiky.
“Cinema is the seventh and most perfect art, and it is natural that it is the most influential.” —Amin Jafari
Iran, the last remnant of the Persian empire, now sits between countries ravaged by war, itself fatigued by its struggle against American imperialism. Censorship, militarization, and crushing poverty could understandably turn visionaries into deadbeats, paralyzed by a collective nostalgia for pre-revolutionary times.
I see Iranian director Jafar Panahi’s 2022 masterpiece No Bears (خرس نیست) as proof that they did not.
Far from being the only Iranian film in recent years to combine entrancing visuals and subtle storytelling, No Bears is an excellent entry point for curious viewers who have yet to fall under the spell of modern Iranian cinema. It offers a potent blend of surrealism and documentary-style filmmaking in which real people, and the bizarre beauty of their lives within an absurd system, are the main focus.
In No Bears, we follow a fictionalized version of exiled filmmaker Jafar Panahi, who retreats to Jaban, an Azeri village near the northern border of Iran. His seclusion is short-lived, as he becomes inadvertently entangled in a local quarrel. The looming threat of arrest and the temptation of escaping to the world beyond the border make it increasingly hard for Panahi to navigate the social dynamics of the village.
The difficulty of filming anything independently is ample enough to severely challenge a filmmaker’s will to live. In Iran, success in this mad quest is practically always rewarded with jail time. What then, is the use of working your fingers to the bone, negotiating with shady characters for funding, risking everything you have, when complete failure seems inevitable?
I needed to know. So, I spoke with Iranian cinematographer Amin Jafari, the award-winning director of photography of No Bears.
As I was setting up the interview, an Iranian filmmaker, Saeed Roustayi, was sentenced to six months of imprisonment because his latest film was screened abroad without the Iranian government’s approval.
“Naturally, when [a director] sends me a script, I’ll read it twice. The first time, I am too involved in the story to think of the technical aspect. I read [the script] like a novel to see where the story goes. The second time, I will take many pictures. I mean, every sequence I read, I plan for visually. I think of the required setup; I think of the placement of light within the space.” —Amin Jafari
No Bears unfolds in the same way. The initial mystery is so gripping that the technical intricacies of the film only reveal themselves after multiple viewings. Early in the film, Panahi’s character lends his camera to Ghanbar, a villager who is about to attend a pre-wedding ceremony. The man, inexperienced with technology, mistakenly turns the camera off when he means to record, mostly recording what he meant to leave out. The mask of civility quickly slips as the unsavory speculation, gossip, and insults recorded to Panahi’s SD card reveal what the villagers really think of him.
Through meticulous adherence to the “Show, don’t tell” rule of filmmaking, Panahi never lectures us, but we quickly understand that the “nasty” parts, meant to happen when the camera isn’t rolling, are the closest representation of the unfiltered truth we’ll ever see.
“Something weird happened. We worked in [Jaban] for about 6 sessions before the police came to chase us away. For the scene where [Panahi] goes to the top of the mountain near the border, our only lighting was moonlight. We couldn't direct artificial light onto [the actors] for fear of being seen. We filmed that sequence in two and a half hours.” —Amin Jafari
With the background given to me by Amin Jafari during the interview, I realized that the cast and crew of No Bears faked very little. They all faced arrest. They were all in the line of fire while filming in smuggler-controlled territory. Still, to them, the authenticity of their work isn’t beyond question. This isn’t Woody Allen’s “self-deprecation.” Panahi is directly challenging the core tenet of his filmography, realism, in a way that makes us realize how easily truth can be distorted into a phony mirror image of itself. When Panahi shoots, he shoots to kill, even when he’s the target. He is acutely aware that melodrama elevates the mundane as much as it cheapens the truth.
In a key scene, Panahi’s character is called out by one of the actresses in his film-within-a-film, who angrily accuses him of tainting his films with faux-optimism. Standing in an alley, facing us, the selcouth Mina Kavani delivers her lines with a piercing gaze. Her eyes are not drenched in fake tears. Cars zoom by, making just enough noise to complement the urban soundscape, entirely undisturbed by her suffering.
Source: No Bears (2022).
“Most mornings I’ll listen to classical music. On the way back, I’ll probably listen to Iranian pop songs I like. It depends. Sometimes, I really prefer not to listen to anything. Not much is certain for me.” —Amin Jafari
Jafari’s personal choices are reflected in the sound design of No Bears. Music in the film is tasteful and diegetic, the events holding enough emotional gravity to obliterate the viewer in perfect silence. His cinematography is immaculate, showing us just enough to get a sense of the setting the story develops in. No unnecessary camera movements, no special lenses, just people, exiled to different extents, slipping into a world where endless imitation has replaced the real.
“The film crew was composed of about ten people. I only had two assistants. We barely had equipment. Just the camera, three lenses, and three tripods. I [lit scenes] with small lamps.
Every scene was shot in one or two takes. Sometimes only once. It was very stressful and we were afraid that the police would come. We only had 15 filming sessions for the entire film.” —Amin Jafari
No Bears won four out of its seven festival nominations, including the Special Jury Prize of the Venice film festival. Such critical acclaim could jumpstart an international career for director Jafar Panahi, who has been allowed to travel abroad for the first time in 14 years. Yet, he refuses to leave Iran for good. His gaze is directed inwards, at the meaning of his work, and at the dishonesty of attempting to make films from anywhere else.
A well-structured narrative bounds the 63-year-old filmmaker’s depiction of his ephemeral subjects, but the soul of Jaban is eternal, bilaterally extending towards infinity. His films, too, will outlive us all. This historical documentation terrifies censors, who resort to threats, violence and imprisonment to oppose it. Despite their eventual failure, the attempts to prevent Jafar Panahi from directing were fervent and numerous. Even his son, filmmaker Panah Panahi, had his only feature film to date officially barred from release.
Source: No Bears (2022).
Regardless, there is also an overt stylistic nod to cinéma vérité in No Bears. In our interview, Amin Jafari confirmed my impression that multiple cast members were first-time actors. I asked him if he recalled being impressed by any of the novices’ acting abilities.
“The first person that came to my mind is the character of Yaghoob, the young man who stands up and speaks to the crowd during the trial. He really was a villager living [in Jaban] because of his mother. He had never acted before. It was the first time he saw a film production team. You saw the brilliance of his performance. He spoke so well, executed his statement so well, and delivered his speech so fluently in that crowd. We shot [his speech] maybe three times. Really, [first-time actors] perform well when they play themselves, but you can't ask a non-actor to star in an action film or a comedy. [The first-time actor] would have to act differently than they know how to. They can't do that.” —Amin Jafari
Source: No Bears (2022).
The line between fiction and documentation has been blurred before, but I’d argue that in this case, it doesn’t exist. The villagers live inside a dream, their ideals of love and accomplishment forever kept in a state of folkloric surrealism.
“Many of the Iranian films that have international distribution are artistic, of course. The point is that this communication [of feelings and anxieties] is a property of art, really. We often listen to music in which we don't understand what is being said, perhaps due to a language barrier, but the feeling that is conveyed to us is pleasant anyway. We really feel like we relate to [the music].” —Amin Jafari
Despair is a crucial part of the human experience, and the cinema that stems from it can resonate with anyone. Still, there is a darkly comedic irony in having to share these films clandestinely. An Iranian black market of cheap copies and bootlegs through which terabytes of images and centuries of film exchange hands. Hands which, for the foreseeable future, will never meet.
Neither a complete summary of the state of cinema in Iran nor an in-depth analysis of the themes in No Bears, this first entry in the Modern ZYNema series serves to highlight the devotion modern Iranian filmmakers have to their craft, while encouraging those who have not seen Jafar Panahi’s No Bears to seek it out.
No Bears (2022) is available to stream on the Criterion Channel, and it can be pre-ordered on Blu-ray disc from the Criterion Collection’s website. Special thanks to Amin Jafari for the interview and F. Bahrpeyma for help with the translation from Persian to English.
Follow Darius Csiky on Instagram.
