14 Jul No Bears (2022)

Religions

All religion is about sex, all tribalisms about religion, and all film about tribalism.

This is the form of how I approach things these days, with three layers of introspective epiphany, and a token from the film for each layer.

In this case, I thought to share it as a self-referential film comment, meaning one that pretends to be about the film but is really about myself.

It shames me, because it is the most selfish thing you can do with a captured reader. And that’s what Panahi does. His excuse is in revealing to us the human pain from inhuman impression of selfishness. He wants to strike at evil.

Make no mistake, there is evil here. And he effectively shows it in the large and small, with a thousand tiny complicities. But he could have done this without making it about himself. Now, maybe that conceit is necessary. Maybe he has to publicly sacrifice himself to display the injustice — and thereby gain the upper hand.

But what I see is a tribalism he participates in, a broken culture disguised as religion whose disguise he accepts, and a deep driving desire for peace. Peace defined as settled women with men.

This is the second film I have seen in a row that has the filmmaker as the main character. ‘Marcel the Shell’ is the other one. At least that one was honest.

Posted in 2023

Ted’s Evaluation — 2 of 3: Has some interesting elements.

IMDB