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Facing almost certain jail time, and exiled to his apartment under a government-imposed house arrest and ban from making films, Iranian filmmaker Jafar Panahi records a day of his existence with the help of a cameraman named Mirtahmasb.
Some of the film was shot on an iPhone. The experimental result certainly meets the demands of its title.
There is no storyline or even much of a plot except that of the external forces that threaten to come crashing into Panahi’s elegant apartment at any moment.
A giant crane from a nearby construction site passes uncomfortably close to our subject’s face as he waters plants on his balcony. His pet iguana Igi likes to dig his claws into Panahi as he uses his master’s t-shirt covered chest as a ladder to gain higher ground on the couch where Panahi looks on his laptop and drinks tea. A DVD copy of the lame thriller “Buried” sits prominently on a shelf as an ironic commentary on the situation at hand.
Bored to distraction, Jafar Panahi uses some of the time to tell the camera the story of a film he wasn’t allowed to make. Talk about grace under pressure. Using tape to mark out a girl’s bedroom on a large carpet, the filmmaker slips into a kind of directorial reverie that doesn’t translate very well.
Upset at the limitations of his attempt at storytelling, he allows himself to be distracted by thinks like phone calls with his attorney about his appeal against a six-year prison sentence.
Smuggled out of Iran on a USB hidden inside a cake sent to the Cannes Film Festival as a last-minute submission, “This Is Not a Film” is a rough document of life in Iran from the perspective of a persecuted intellectual. The fireworks that punctuate the night sky could easily be mistaken for gunfire. More than a clandestine documentary, “This Is Not a Film” is a revolutionary act. Hopefully, it won’t be his last.
Not Rated. 75 mins.
