Updates, Live: Mohsen Makhmalbaf, The Gardener

Mohsen Makhmalbaf, The Gardener, 2012

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... a surreal film made using documentary-style techniques via the cameras of father and son (the Makhmalbafs) (imdb) ... like living the forbidden dream ... the cinematic approach calling in mind Parajanov and his Sayat Nova ... Paula Asadi's apparition in the movie, a diaphanous dance, like she's coming from a god, impossible to define ... a prophetess telling an ethereal message ... and the birds drawing high in the sky paths seeming to go towards an unknown deity ... Baháʼí originated in Iran, where it is now forbidden, it is hosted by Israel, a land forbidden for Iranians ... a forbidden faith, beautiful as a forbidden dream, in a forbidden land ... a conversation between the two cameras (surajchew) ... and the impression that the movie is made just in front of your eyes, through trial and error ... a cinematic journey, inviting us to meditate together with them, about faith and reality, about the link (illusory? certain?) between the mundane and the beyond ... the father and the son are both agnostics, however their difference of age makes the difference ... for the father all he witnesses in the Baháʼí Gardens puts into question his ways ... the son is a rebel, with clear-cut certitudes and definitive answers ... we all passed through his age ... we all were once rebels ... and the meditation is ultimately not only about a religion (or any religion), it is about the path between objective and illusion ... our objective universe and the universe of art, or of faith ... but this is common to all great Iranian filmmakers ...