KIarostami, The colours, 1976

(source: FB page of Charles Derral)
no copyright infringement intended

see also:

• Wikipedia
• IMDB
• Letterboxd
• The Seventh Art

Je pense au Petit Prince, c'est un film pour lui.

Abbas Kiarostami: ...رنگ‌ها Rang-ha (The Colours), 1976
(video by belogtoob)

(I'm in the Mood for Kiarostami)

Omar Khayyám

Omar Khayyám
(source: slideshare)
no copyrigt infringement intended

Un punct pierdut e lumea, în haosul imens
Toată ştiinţa noastră: cuvinte fără sens
Om, pasăre şi floare sunt umbre în abis
Zadarnic este gândul, iar existenţa - vis.
(source: FB page of Smaranda Dobrescu)

Le vaste monde : un grain de poussière dans l'espace.
Toute la science des hommes : des mots.
Les peuples, les bêtes et les fleurs des sept climats : des ombres.
Le résultat de ta méditation perpétuelle : Rien !

(source: poésie perse)

Our great wide world - a piece
of dust. All human knowledge - words.
The people, animals and flowers of the
seven continents - shadows. The result
of our meditations -
nothing.

(source: Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam)

El mundo inmenso: un grano de polvo en el espacio.
Toda la ciencia de los hombres: palabras.
Los pueblos, las bestias y las flores de los siete climas: sombras.
El fruto de tu constante meditación: la nada.
(source: El Laberinto de Andrea)

O imenso mundo: um grão de areia perdido no espaço.
Toda a ciência dos homens: palavras.
Os povos, os animais e as flores dos sete climas: sombras.
O resultado de tua meditação: nada.

(source: slideshare)

(Iranian Film and Poetry)

Idioma Persa

caligrafia persa
(http://www.centropersepolis.com/sobre-iran/literatura/idioma/)
no copyright infringement intended

El persa (en persa, فارسی fârsí) o farsi, es una lengua hablada en Irán, aunque podemos encontrar comunidades persahablantes en Afganistán, Tayikistán, Uzbekistán, Omán, Emiratos Árabes, Pakistán e incluso en India, sin contar con los centenares de miles de persas que hay en diáspora. Tiene más de 100 millones de hablantes nativos. Pertenece a la familia de lenguas indoeuropeas. Su tipología es Sujeto Objeto Verbo.

Es oficial en  Irán (persa iraní), Tayikistán (persa tayiko), and Afganistán (persa dari). Es regulado por Academia de la lengua y literatura persa y Academia de Ciencias de Afganistán.

El nombre de este idioma en español es persa. La Academia de la Lengua y la Literatura Persa, y otras muchas fuentes denominan de esta manera a la lengua. La palabra fārsí es la actual designación del idioma tanto en persa como en árabe, y fue originalmente la forma arábiga para expresar pārsī, el antiguo nombre del idioma, debido a la carencia del fonema /p/ en árabe estándar.

El persa, dentro de la familia indoeuropea, pertenece a las lenguas indoiranias que a su vez se dividen en lenguas iranias y lenguas indoarias. El persa es una lengua irania noroccidental, y está documentado con diferentes variantes desde hace más de 25 siglos. Naturalmente en todo el período documentado, la lengua ha cambiado notablemente por lo que el persa más antiguo es una lengua ininteligible para un hablante de persa moderno. La periodificación convencional de las diferentes variedades o lenguas persas es:

• Persa antiguo (o persa aqueménida), documentado en inscripciones cuneiformes esculpidas durante el imperio aqueménida, hasta aproximadamente el 300 a. C.
• Persa medio (Pahlavi o persa sasánida), documentado especialmente durante el imperio de los sasánidas y coetáneo del idioma parto (iranio suroccidental).
• Persa moderno (El persa moderno comienza alrededor del año 900 de la era cristiana hasta nuestros días) y es desde esa época hasta nuestros días donde se van formando las actuales tres grandes lenguas pérsidas: el persa contemporáneo, el darí y el tayico.

La lengua en sí ha evolucionado enormemente a lo largo del tiempo, habiendo cambiado enormemente tanto en el nivel fonológico como en el morfosintáctico. Además debido al desarrollo tecnológico y el contacto con otros pueblos de Oriente Medio el persa presenta un buen número de préstamos léxicos procedentes de otras lenguas, situación que también se da en el resto de lenguas de la región.

En Irán la Academia de la Lengua y la Literatura Persa es un centro que evalúa los nuevos registros que se utilizan en la lengua con el fin de recomendar un equivalente que respete las normas gramático-fonológicas del persa. En Afganistán, la Academia de las Ciencias de Afganistán cumple la misma función para el persa afgano (así como con otras lenguas).

Normalmente es posible la comunicación entre iraníes, tayicos y afganos darí-hablantes, con dificultad variable. La lengua persa ha sufrido evoluciones como sucede en todas las lenguas del mundo. Las modernas variantes de lenguas pérsidas se agrupan de la siguiente manera:

• El persa occidental o iraní, con sus distintos dialectos.
• El darí, llamado también persa oriental y persa afgano, es una de las dos lenguas oficiales de Afganistán. Es mucho más conservador que el persa contemporáneo. Cuenta con dos dialectos destacables: el aimaq y el hazaraguí. Las principales diferencias son que ambas incorporan léxico túrquico y mongol, además de algún rasgo morfológico y fonético.
• El tayiko es la variedad persa más evolucionada, es la lengua oficial de Tayikistán y se escribe con un alfabeto cirílico adaptado. También es hablado en el norte de Afganistán, en alguna de las ciudades importantes del norte y principalmente el la provincia de Badajsán; así como en Uzbequistán en las provincias de Samarcanda y Bujará. Entre sus principales dialectos destaca: El bújaro, que es la lengua hablada por los judíos en Bujará durante siglos, hoy quedan muy pocos hablantes en Bujará, ya que la gran mayoría emigraron a Israel.

(wikipedia)

(La Española - or Hispaniola)

(Iranian Film and Poetry)

Forough Farrokhzād

Forough Farrokhzād (1935 - 1967)
فروغ فرخزاد
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Foroogh.gif)
no copyright infringement intended

One of the most influential poets in contemporary Iranian culture.

• The House is Black (1963)
• Meditating a Movie
• Journeying with Kiarostami: The Wind Will Carry Us 
• The Wind Will Carry Us, again 
• The Cold Season 
• The Gift / Frontier Walls 
• Another Birth 
• Sin
• The Window 
• O Poezie de Forough Farrokhzād

(Iranian Film and Poetry)

Rumi: The Guest House

Firstly I found the poem in Portuguese. It was on a splendid blog having as motto a quote from Montaigne: Filosofar é aprender a morrer.

O ser humano é uma casa de hóspedes.
Toda manhã uma nova chegada.

A alegria, a depressão, a falta de sentido, como visitantes inesperados.

Receba e entretenha a todos
Mesmo que seja uma multidão de dores
Que violentamente varrem sua casa e tira seus móveis.
Ainda assim trate seus hóspedes honradamente.
Eles podem estar te limpando
para um novo prazer.

O pensamento escuro, a vergonha, a malícia,
encontre-os à porta rindo.

Agradeça a quem vem,
porque cada um foi enviado
como um guardião do além.

(http://projetophronesis.wordpress.com/2010/10/05/rumi-a-casa-dos-hospedes/)

Listen now to the verses as they are read in this video: each one in English, then in Portuguese. It differs here and there with the version above.

(video by Timeless Teaching)

I tried to translate it in English. I wasn't satisfied at all with my rendering. Eventually I found a splendid English version on the net, by Coleman Barks, a man who, despite the lack of knowledge of Persian, has given great translations of Rumi's poems.

This being human is a guest house.
Every morning a new arrival.

A joy, a depression, a meanness,
some momentary awareness comes
as an unexpected visitor.

Welcome and entertain them all!
Even if they're a crowd of sorrows,
who violently sweep your house
empty of its furniture,
still, treat each guest honorably.
He may be clearing you out
for some new delight.

The dark thought, the shame, the malice,
meet them at the door laughing,
and invite them in.

Be grateful for whoever comes,
because each has been sent
as a guide from beyond.

(http://www.panhala.net/Archive/The_Guest_House.html)

(http://www.tripadvisor.com.br/ShowUserReviews-g294321-d498786-r13800668-Kuychi_Rumi-Urubamba_Sacred_Valley.html)

And here is in Romanian. I found it on a blog with a great name, Reflectii pe o frunza (Reflexions on a Leaf), and the blogpost had a great title, Esente de Rumi in Khartoum (Essences of Rumi, in Khartoum). I modified it a little.

Fiinta asta omeneasca este o casa de oaspeti
Iar fiecare dimineata e un nou venit
O bucurie, o-ntristare, o josnicie,
O priza de constiinta trecatoare,
Toate apar precum un oaspete neasteptat

Intampina-i si bucura-i pe toti!
Chiar pe-o gramada de pareri de rau
Ce-ti zguduie casa, de mobilele toate ti-o goleste
Si-atunci chiar, poarta-te frumos, ca-i oaspe
Si poate ca te va calauzi spre-o noua incantare

Gandul intunecat, rusinea, rautatea,
Intampina-le zambitor la usa
Razi, si invita-le 'nauntru

Fii recunoscator oricarui oaspete ce vine,
Caci e-un trimis,
Un sol de dincolo.

(Reflectii pe o frunza)

(Iranian Film and Poetry)

19 Hours Until Nowrūz

(illustration by Mark Todd for NY Times)

I looked into the calendar: 19 hours until Nowrūz, right now! نوروز, the beginning of the Iranian New Year. Says Porochista Khakpour, as long as there is Spring, there is Nowrūz. Porochista Khakpour came to US with her parents at the beginning of the 1980's. She was four years old, and the Wienerschnitzel proved very quickly an irresistible attraction for the kid. It was not the Wiener Schnitzel, no, it was just that, the Wienerschnitzel, a fast-food chain in LA with hot-dogs and coke. American experience works always against your identity, shaping a new one. There is a moment you start to dream English, and a friend was telling me of the moment she started to keep her notebook in English, it had begun to be more at ease than to continue it in Romanian.

So the Nowrūz faded more and more throughout the years for the girl who had arrived on Californian soil at the beginning of the 1980's. It happened though what happens with many immigrants: at a certain point she started to miss the lost identity, to look back and to discover beauties and wonders.

Porochista Khakpour is now an established novelist, the author of Sons and Other Inflammable Objects. There is an op-ed by her in today's NY Times, where she's telling about the long journey from her roots to the Wienerschnitzel and slowly back again:

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/20/opinion/20khakpour.html?nl=todaysheadlines&emc=tha212

You should also read her blog.

19 Hours till Nowrūz. A movie by Panahi comes to my mind, The White Balloon, it takes place just hours before Nowrūz, and it is flooded by a fairy tale atmosphere, as this is what's about with this fest, it has the magic of a Persian fairy tale.

نوروز مبارک! Happy Nowrūz to you all!

(Iranian Film and Poetry)

Nader and Simin, A Separation - The Golden Bear at Berlin

It happened today: Nader and Simin, A Separation (جدایی نادر از سیمین - Jodaeiye Nader Az Simin) by Iranian director Asghar Farhadi has won the Golden Bear (along with the Silver Bear for Best Actress and Best Actor) at the 61-st Berlin International Film Festival. The director dedicated the success to the great Iranian director Jafar Panahi, who is imprisoned by the regime in Tehran for his courageous political views expressed in his movies.

The movie was released just several days ago, on February 9.

(video by Euronews)

Here is the plot of Nader a Simin, aA Separation (as I found it on wikipedia):

Nader and Simin have been married for fifteen years and live with their eleven-year-old daughter Termeh in Tehran. The family belong to the urban upper middle-class and the couple are on the verge of separation. Simin wants to leave the country with her husband and daughter, as she does not want Termeh to grow up under the prevailing conditions. Her desire is not shared by the stubborn Nader. He has concerns for his father, who lives with the family and suffers from Alzheimer's disease. When Nader decides to stay in Iran, Simin files for a divorce.

The Family Court judges the couple's problems to not be grave enough and rejects Simin's application. Simin then leaves her husband and daughter and moves in with her mother. Nader hires Razieh, a young, pregnant and deeply religious woman from a poor suburb, to be able to better take care of his father. Razieh has applied for the job without consulting her hot-tempered husband Hodjat, whose approval according to tradition would have been needed. Her family is however financially dependent on the work, and brings her daughter with her.

Razieh soon becomes overworked by taking care of Nader's father and does not receive much pay. She becomes unsure whether her religion allows her to wash the old man who suffers from incontinence. She refrains from the task and ties the man to his bed while she leaves for a doctor's appointment, but plans to ask her husband about the issue before Nader hears anything about it. However Nader returns and discovers the father's condition. Outraged, he shoves Razieh out of the apartment and calls her a criminal, whereupon the next day, she loses her unborn child in the fourth month of pregnancy.

The case is taken to court. Razieh's husband could either get a prison sentence for attempted murder, or receive financial compensation if Nader is found to be guilty of the miscarriage. The wives and daughters wait outside for the final verdict. Razieh is found to not be guilty of the incident and tumbles to the street.

Here is another summary of this movie, given by Radu_A:

Nader and Simin are a couple about to break up over the question of moving abroad, for which they have obtained a permit after waiting for 18 months. Nader, however, has his father to take care of, who is suffering from Alzheimer's. Sirin still wants to leave, but not without her daughter (yes, pun intended) Termeh, a somewhat shy, bespectacled 11-year-old who cannot accept her parents' break-up. She therefore decides to stay with her father, which prompts Simin not to leave the country, but move to her mother. Nader is thereby forced to hire someone to take care of his dad, and a colleague of Sirin recommends the pregnant Razieh. Being deeply religious, she should not work in a single man's household, but her husband has been out of a job for a long time and is threatened with jail by his creditors. Her pregnancy and the necessity to attend to her daughter additionally stress her out. When Nader comes home one day to find his father left alone and tied to his bed, a struggle with the returning Razieh ensues, with catastrophic consequences for everyone around...


One more word about the interpret of Simin: it's Leila Hatami, a fine actress that I saw also in Leila, an unforgettable movie made by Dariush Mehrjui.

(Iranian Film and Poetry)

Jafar Panahi: The Circle (2000)

Dayereh (The Circle), made in 2000 by Jafar Panahi takes the hellish universe from his other movies to the extreme. A bunch of women is followed by the camera during one given day. They were out of prison in the morning, they are trying to do anything in their power to not come back there, they are again in jail at evening. It is not explained how did they come out of prison in the morning; it doesn't matter. The movie doesn't show what they are doing all day long; it doesn't matter. The camera just leaves one to follow the other, and so on: glimpses of life.

It is not told why they were imprisoned for the first time: it doesn't matter. A woman can be arrested there seemingly for anything: traveling without being escorted by a male relative, or traveling without documents, or smoking in public, or not having the chador properly arranged, or responding improperly when harassed by men, or traveling escorted by the wrong man, or simply being in the wrong place at the wrong time. Any place can be the wrong place, anytime. A woman just gave birth to a daughter, and the in-laws were expecting a boy: the wrong place at the wrong time. The husband could throw her out on the street with the baby, her brothers could not let the woman come back in the home of her parents.

There is no main character in the movie: just a bunch of women followed randomly by a handheld camera. Women on the run. A perfectly circular universe without possibility of escape. A perfectly crazy universe without fissure. A genially built dystopia. Think at Kafka, think at Orwell.

Is this the real situation of women in that country? Well, it's like asking whether an oppressive regime is really that oppressive. Of course, it is not like that for all women; it is not like that for many women, but that's not the point. Bottom line, it's about women at the mercy of a society whose laws, institutions and traditions are male centered. Most women know the rules of the game, but for any of them there is potentially a wrong place at the wrong time.

Is it such a situation only in one country? Only in one totalitarian ideology, whether religious or secular? I would let the response to you.

I found this movie on youTube in ten consecutive videos (published by brightersummerday). As embedding was disabled, I have indicated here the address for each video.

Dayereh Part 1 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UhkPmd_OerA

Dayereh Part 2 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EqlgLP5jfig

Dayereh Part 3 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pi8yApXTOA0

Dayereh Part 4 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P98ZUTNuf2s

Dayereh Part 5 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nuUffEZGRfI

Dayereh Part 6 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bngm9tcSNOA

(Jafar Panahi)

Jafar Panahi

Jafar Panahi
جعفر پناهی

One of the most important Iranian film makers; his movies show an oppressive society without possibility of escape. Don't fall in the trap to consider that it's only about today's Iran. The guy is much subtle and calls in mind Kafka.

Unfortunately the Iranian regime is not subtle: for his works, Jafar Panahi is now serving a six years sentence and has a 20 years ban to make movies. What a shame!

• The White Balloon (1995)
• The Mirror (1997)
  
• The Circle (2000)
  
• Crimson Gold (2003)
• This Is Not a Film (2010)
• The Accordion (2010)
  

(Iranian Film and Poetry)

Jafar Panahi: Crimson Gold (2003)

Art is much higher than politics... You never say what's wrong or right. We just show the problems.
(Jafar Panahi)

It starts like a film noir, a scene of robbery with an absurd outcome, excellently shot, with an incredible rhythm, with guts, and one could expect the movie will go on this way, kind of Quentin Tarantino on the steroids. Actually this starting scene, coming again at the end, is the moment of explosion in the story.

Crimson Gold (طلای سرخ Talaye Sorkh), released in 2003, with Jafar Panahi as director and Abbas Kiarostami as screenwriter; it is the second movie of this tandem that I've watched (the other was The White Balloon). Two films showing a society that rejects the people who don't fit in the canons. In The White Balloon it's the Afghan boy (only there the idea is subtly hidden up to the end). Here in Crimson Gold, it's Hussein, the pizza delivery guy, who is played by a non-professional, Hossain Emadeddin. Like his personage, he is in real life a pizza delivery man. Like his personage, he is under medication for a form of schizophrenia. His performance is remarkable. Looking always like he's carrying all his household with him everywhere he goes, while able exactly this way to induce the feeling that he is his own guy. Silent, quiet, apparently in total selfcontrol, while able exactly this way to communicate to us his terrible tensions that boil in himself and make him a walking time-bomb.


As a schizophrenic, Hussein sees the society through his own mirror (and the idea of shooting him so often through the shield of his motorbike is genial). Actually, that shield acts both ways: Hussein is in turn the perfect mirror of the society surrounding him. It is a society sick of the same schizophrenia, an absurd universe where everybody is hostile to all the others, parents are denouncing their children, police arrest anybody for anything, simple people float freely toward petty crime, rich people are surrounded by a richness that is absurd by lack of meaning.

Each sequence of the movie calls for a moment of disruption, you cannot stand to such absurdity, you have to explode, and there are small disruptions all along, culminating with the big one, the failed robbery.



It's not only about Iran, as many reviewers consider. This film is a metaphor, and a metaphor is universal. The movie is banned in Iran while its director was not allowed to enter US to assist at the screening there. Director Jafar Panahi is banned in his own country and is suspected elsewhere as coming from his own country.

The robbery scene that links the beginning and the end of the movie shows a universe that is circular with no way to escape (also in The White Balloon the first and the last scenes are the same). It's an extremely nihilistic movie: there is no superior order (cosmic or divine) to show us the way, to offer us solace, to teach us higher wisdom. The whole universe is a walking time-bomb.

طلای سرخ: Part 1/9
(video by brightersummerday)

طلای سرخ: Part 2/9
(video by brightersummerday)

طلای سرخ: Part 3/9
(video by brightersummerday)

طلای سرخ: Part 4/9
(video by brightersummerday)

طلای سرخ: Part 5/9
(video by brightersummerday)

طلای سرخ: Part 6/9
(video by brightersummerday)

طلای سرخ: Part 7/9
(video by brightersummerday)

طلای سرخ: Part 8/9
(video by brightersummerday)

طلای سرخ: Part 9/9
(video by brightersummerday)

(Jafar Panahi)

(I'm in the Mood for Kiarostami)

Solace of the Eyes

Sahba Motallebi is determined to reintroduce the lost rhythms of Persian music, which she rediscovered among the Turkish rhythms.

(video by SahbaTV)

A poem of love, built on an admirable ambiguity: Love of God is Eros, as true love cannot be otherwise.

This poem was created by Fátimih Baraghání, a great poetess and theologian of the XIXth century, who was killed for her religious convictions, after years of imprisonment. She is known as طاهره‎ (Táhirih - The Pure One). She is also known as قرة العين‎ (Qurratu'l-`Ayn - Consolation of the Eyes).

If I met you face to face, I
would retrace - erase!
my heartbreak,
pain by pain,
ache by ache,
word by word,
point by point.

De-ar fi sa ne-ntalnim, fatza catre fatza.
mi-as face inima din nou bucurie
sufletul frant uitarii l-as da!
durere dupa durere,
rana dupa rana,
cuvant dupa cuvant,
deznadejde dupa deznadejde.

In search of you-
justify your face!- I
roam through the streets
lost in disgrace,
house to house,
lane to lane,
place to place,
door to door.

In cautarea ta -
arata-ti fatza!-
ratacesc pe drumuri
pierdut in rusine,
casa dupa casa,
drum dupa drum,
loc dupa loc,
poarta dupa poarta.

My heart hopeless-broken,
crushed!- I heard it pound,
till blood gushed from me,
fountain by fountain,
stream by stream,
river by river,
sea by sea.

Inima mea, fara nadejde - desirata,
zdrobita! - Am auzit-o faramitandu-se
pana ce sangele a tasnit din mine,
izvor dupa izvor,
suvoi dupa suvoi,
rau dupa rau,
ocean dupa ocean.

The garden of your lips -
your cheeks! -
your perfumed hair,
I wander there,
bloom to bloom,
rose to rose,
petal to petal,
scent to scent.

Gradina buzelor tale -
obrajii tai! -
parul tau parfumat,
ratacesc pe acolo,
floare dupa floare,
roza dupa roza,
petala dupa petala,
mireasma dupa mireasma.

Your eyebrow - your eye! -
and the mole'n your face,
somehow they tie me,
trait to trait,
kindness to kindness,
passion to passion,
love to love.

Sprancenele tale - ochii tai! -
si alunita de pe obraz,
de parca m-ar inlantui,
trasatura dupa trasatura,
dragalasenie dupa dragalasenie,
patima dupa patima,
dragoste dupa dragoste.

While I grieve,
with love - your love! - I
will reweave the
fabric of my soul,
stitch by stitch,
thread by thread,
warp by warp,
woof by woof.

Si-n timp ce plang
din dragoste - din dragoste de tine!
imi voi tese din nou
borangicul sufletului,
bucata dupa bucata,
fir dupa fir,
urzeala dupa urzeala,
ultima parte dupa ultima parte.

Last I - Tahirih -
searched my heart, I
looked line by line,
What did I find?
You and you,
you and you, you and you.

Iar ca sa-nchei eu - Tahirih, cea pura -
mi-am cercetat inima,
am citit-o, cuvant dupa cuvant,
si n-am gasit nimic decat pe tine,
pe tine dupa tine,
pe tine dupa tine, pe tine dupa tine.

(Iranian Film and Poetry)

Playing the Sorna and Dohol

A dohol is a large cylindrical drum with two skin heads. It is generally struck on one side with a wooden stick bowed at the end, and with a large thin stick on the other side, though it is also played by the bare hands. It is the principal accompaniment for the sorna, which is the Persian ancestor of the Renaissance shawm (which in turn developed to the oboe; so it goes).

Sometimes sorna is also referred as saz, which in Turkey (also in the Caucasian countries, as well as in Bosnia and Albania) denotes a long-necked fretted lute. Such a lute has a pear-shaped wooden body and several metal strings arranged in double or triple courses, and is played with a plectrum: in Caucasus it may be played in ensembles of as many as 15 to 20 players, accompanying an ashug, which is what we would call a troubadour.

But if we are here, at what it means to be an ashug, I have to promise you a post about Parajanov's Ashug-Karibi... all in good time!

سُرنا , دُهُل
(video by siyasard)

(Iranian Film and Poetry)

Playing the Setar

Setar means literally three strings; however, Two and a half centuries ago, a fourth string was added to the setar, which has 25 - 27 moveable frets. It originated in Persia before the spread of Islam.

سه ‌تار
(video by SahbaTV)

(Iranian Film and Poetry)

Playing the Tambur

Turkish Tambur has two variants, mizrapli (played with a plectrum) and yayli (played with a bow). It is interesting: the word tambur came to Romanian with a shifted meaning, drum played within a military band (and always the head of the band is drumming the tambur). For those who remember Dan Spătaru and his songs, Trecea fanfara militara, In frunte cu-n tambur major....

mizrapli tambur

mizrapli tambur
(video by Tanburiahmet)

yayli tambur

yayli tambur
(video by evrenersin)

(Iranian Film and Poetry)

Playing the Oud

Arab musician in Aleppo, Syria with an oud circa 1915

According to Farabi, the oud was invented by Lamech, the sixth grandson of Adam. You'd like to hear the legend, only it sounds kind of morbid for modern tastes, so I'll rather pass over.

Anyway, even if it wasn't invented exactly in those times, the oud is very old, for sure. Arabs and Kurds call it ūd, Turks call it ud or ut, Greeks call it ούτι, in Somalia it's called cuud, in Iran barbat. This pear-shaped instrument is used across the whole Middle East. It is the ancestor of the lute.

بربط
(video by Oshagh)

An ancient Turkish ud inlaid with ivory and mother-of-pearl
(Mevlâna mausoleum, Konya, Turkey)

(Iranian Film and Poetry)

Playing the Tombak

(http://sabamusic.se/sv.php?subaction=showfull&id=1158533875&archive=&start_from=&ucat=10&do=ommusik)

A tombak is a one-headed drum carved from a single piece of wood. It is placed under the player's arm and held in-between the fingers of his two hands. Its body is made from wood, ceramic or light metals. But wood is the most convenient material.

Farhad Bazargan was born in Isfahan in 1966. Currently he lives in Norway. Tombak is his passion.

دنبک
(video by farhad66)

(Iranian Film and Poetry)

Playing the Tar

Painting from the Hasht-Behesht Palace in Isfahan Iran, 1669
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tar_%28lute%29)

Tar is claimed to be the root of the names of the Iranian setar and the guitar as well as less as the dutar and the Indian sitar.

تار'
(video by arminkaedi)

(Iranian Film and Poetry)

Playing the Daf

Daf in a Miniature, Isfahan
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daf)

After santur, daf. The artist is Hussein Zahawy, a Kurdish Percussionist for folk, art music and jazz.

دف
(video by ArtistProVideo)

(Iranian Film and Poetry)

Playing the Santur

Painting from the Hasht-Behesht Palace in Isfahan Iran, 1669
(http://www.citizendia.org/Santur)

I promised when I spoke about Grass that I would look for videos with music performed on traditional Iranian instruments, here is the santur. Enjoy!

شهریار
(video by saam111000)

(Iranian Film and Poetry)

Mohsen Makhmalbaf: Gabbeh (1996)

Gabbeh, a movie from 1996, written, directed and edited by Mohsen Makhmalbah, capturing its story from a tiny scene depicted on a Persian rug: a pair of lovers riding the horse.

Gabbehs are one of the many varieties of Persian rugs. They are hand-knotted by women belonging to Lori, Bakhtiari or Qashqai clans: shepherds wandering with their flocks over the Iranian mountains and beyond.

A gabbeh is small sized while much thicker than other rugs; its surface is a symphony of colors: the yellow of the sun, the red of flowers, the blue of sky, the green of grass, all of them meeting there. Life is color, love is color, beauty is color: colors of surrounding nature extended on the clothes they wear and on the gabbehs they craft, these women living under the sun and the clouds, on the grass and among flowers.

As rich in colors as it is, a gabbeh has usually a very basic pattern, sometimes just a small scene some place on the rug.

I am thinking at those Chinese drawings in ink on rice paper, at one corner with a tiny fisherman in a small boat: it's telling a story, the size of a spot, and all the space that remains is just what? emptiness? Or maybe the whole is telling a much larger story? about the artist, about the making of the artwork?

The gabbeh from this movie resembles those Chinese drawings in this detail: there is a small scene on the surface, the size of a spot. A pair of lovers on horseback; and the whole surface of the rug, exploding in colors, subtly supporting the tiny story.

An old couple is carrying their gabbeh to wash it in the river, as they've done everyday, for forty years. It's become a ritual.

A gabbeh and a ritual: we enter the realm of magic. And magic is what we see in this movie: the gabbeh is getting alive, becoming a young woman who's telling the story of the pair of lovers. A story that has lasted for forty years.




We associate rituals with religious practices, while they mean more. Rituals keep alive the collective memory of civilizations. The more primitive a civilization the more obvious.

A ritual, with its precise details, with its precise repetitions, is to keep the remembrance alive: to participate again at an event of significance; to cancel time and to live when the event actually took place. Participation, not reenactment. Father Alexandre Schmemann wrote an admirable book about the Eucharist as Mystery of the Kingdom: you'll find there some great pages about remembrance as participation, as canceling time and be there to witness the Passion, the Death, and the Resurrection.

The ritual of washing the gabbeh here in the movie is personal: the story of the pair of lovers is remembered by the old couple everyday: remembrance as participation, canceling of time.

But, as I said, this scene of two lovers riding the horse is just a tiny part of the whole surface of the rug: the story of love is remembered within the remembrance of that pastoral civilization: the clan of shepherds migrating over the Zagros mountains in search of grass for their flocks. A clan carrying, together with its animals, its primitive culture with severe rules and taboos, necessary for survival. A community kept alive through the force of its culture, a culture kept alive through carefully observed rituals.

And here Parajanov comes in mind, of course, and not only him: also the Chinese Tian Zhuang-Zhuang. They also depicted in their movies ancient communities kept alive by the force of rituals, of traditions, rules that are difficult to be understood as they defy logic: these rules express a cultural matrix, a system of values that defines the group as a whole.

What Makhmalbaf brings in this depiction of a patriarchal culture is the use of colors and sounds: these people have a special sensibility for colors, they spend their lives surrounded by the colors of nature, by the vivid colors of their female clothes, by the colors they put in their gabbehs. And as they spend all their life outside, these people have a special understanding of the language of sounds, be them sounds of the birds or animals, be them sounds of the grass in the wind, of the rocks on the footpaths in the mountains, or of the river. And Makhmalbah succeeded to give an active role in his movie to each sound, to each color: by the way they are placed, by the way they are repeated, by the way they come along with the feelings of people. This movie is a feast to watch.

Gabbeh: Part 1/7
(video by TheReturnoftheSDQ)

Gabbeh: Part 2/7
(video by TheReturnoftheSDQ)

Gabbeh: Part 3/7
(video by TheReturnoftheSDQ)

Gabbeh: Part 4/7
(video by TheReturnoftheSDQ)

Gabbeh: Part 5/7
(video by TheReturnoftheSDQ)

Gabbeh: Part 6/7
(video by TheReturnoftheSDQ)

Gabbeh: Part 7/7
(video by TheReturnoftheSDQ)

(Mohsen Makhmalbaf)