| Publication |
2011.
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| Summary/Abstract |
The fascination for the Western world with Iranian cinema lies primarily with the fablelike
developments of its stories which often plunge us into a world of exoticism and lured us
with its singularity. Iranian war cinema born during the war between Iran and Iraq is not
as well distributed in Europe and films with English subtitles are difficult to get hold of.
Whether it is interpreted as an anthropological document which opens a dialogue between
the protagonist and the spectators, the "I" and the other, Iranian war cinema by Tabrizi,
Sinayi, Hatamikia and Ghobadi, among many others, can be seen as a spiritual voyage
where the soul hovers between absence and presence. In the wake of war cinema in
general, one can draw parallels with mythology, the Judeo-Christian tradition,
literature and art. Its function is not only didactic but cathartic, and the particularity
of Iranian war cinema like no other is that it participates in the mourning process of a
whole nation fighting against its own ghosts and in search of its identity. This article
attempts to decipher the myths hidden behind the images presented by Iranian war
cinema, paradoxically interweaving the traumatic with the aesthetic.
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