Reviews on movie The Circle (2)

Dark screen, screams of a woman giving birth. A few uncomfortable seconds pass in the background of the credits.

It's a girl. What a beautiful .

The window of the maternity office opens, an old woman asks the nurse who was born.
A girl. A pretty girl.
The old woman panicked. Not that! They were waiting for the boy. Now the parents of the groom will demand a divorce, what a disaster!
With this begins an hour and a half almost documentary journey through the Iranian streets, women appear in the frame, some of them hide from the police for lack of documents, someone escaped from prison without serving time for a non-existent crime, someone is looking for last aid for an abortion, and someone leaves a beautiful daughter in the middle of the street in order for her to go to a better life.

It is a very lively film, and despite the natural romanticism of women, it is sincere and impressive. It is clear that in the Islamic world the theme of women’s share is tragic, it is clear that any story about the role of women in the patriarchy will one way or another resist the rigid prison of streets and voiceover rules, but thanks to its dynamics and ease of storytelling, the film, even after twenty years, looks very fresh and pleasant, which is not expected from the national cinema of the beginning of the century.
Interestingly, there is no pronounced antagonist in the story, men with some caution go to the aid, bypassing the rules of the game, the police show weakness and show humanity towards Haram. It seems that none of those present is to blame that the secret of Abdul Polishinel flying through the streets is driving ordinary people crazy in the despair of one Islamic state with a hint of modern dictatorial regimes.

The Circle, one of Jafar Panahi’s most famous paintings, for which he was put under house arrest, is dedicated to the joyless position of women in Muslim society. Despite the prevalence of the topic and the variety of ways to solve it on the screen, Panahi chose one of the most ambiguous and complex - almost documentary narration, on the verge of art. The narrative sometimes acquires a dull, dreary intonation, watching the film is difficult, all the time something interferes. First of all, the undeveloped dramaturgy, although the construction itself is quite interesting and symbolic: the image of a circle expressing hopelessness and pessimism in the understanding of society, from which there is no way out.
Each story begins where the previous one ends and develops in a circle, passing through the same interiors, situations and revealing the same relationships between people as the previous ones. Everything is quite obvious, all the topics are named, there is nothing to analyze, except that the Islamic world itself appears in the film as a prison from which there is no escape, hospitals are turned into prisons (symmetry of the initial and final episodes), the movement of a woman is limited by a diverse range of the most absurd prescriptions, which are almost impossible to comply with due to their many.

The themes of abortion, prostitution, unjust criminal record, the complete disenfranchisement of women who are ready to give their children to other families, as long as they do not see their grief - all this gives rise to a special, hopeless atmosphere, for which Panahi called a vilification. It can be said that he programmatically rejects the humanistic neorealism of Kiyarostami and Makhmalbaf and in the center of the film puts not so much a person and his fate, not so much compassion for a person, as the negative aspects of society, which the director shows in uncontested negative coverage. All this, of course, is true, and no one will suspect Panahi of denigration, but only love for a person can be an antidote not only to pessimism and hopelessness, but also to boredom when watching such a “black” movie. Love enlivens everything, it is precisely her that Panahi is missing.