Mohsen Makhmalbaf

Iranian filmmakers have long been recognised for creating a vibrant, aesthetically rich cinema whilst working under strict state censorship regulations. As Michelle Langford reveals, many have found indirect, allegorical ways of expressing forbidden topics and issues in their films. But for many, allegory is much more than a foil against haphazardly applied censorship rules. Drawing on a long history of allegorical expression in Persian poetry and the arts, allegory has become an integral part of the poetics of Iranian cinema. Allegory in Iranian Cinema explores the allegorical aesthetics of Iranian cinema, explaining how it has emerged from deep cultural traditions and how it functions as a strategy for both supporting and resisting dominant ideology.
As well as tracing the roots of allegory in Iranian cinema before and after the 1979 revolution, Langford also theorizes this cinematic mode. She draws on a range of cinematic, philosophical and cultural concepts - developed by thinkers such as Walter Benjamin, Gilles Deleuze, Pier Paolo Pasolini, Christian Metz and Vivian Sobchack - to provide a theoretical framework for detailed analyses of films by renowned directors of the pre-and post-revolutionary eras including Masoud Kimiai, Dariush Mehrjui, Ebrahim Golestan, Kamran Shirdel, Majid Majidi, Jafar Panahi, Marziyeh Meshkini, Mohsen Makhmalbaf, Rakhshan Bani-Etemad and Asghar Farhadi.
Allegory in Iranian Cinema explains how a centuries-old means of expression, interpretation, encoding and decoding becomes, in the hands of Iran's most skilled cineastes, a powerful tool with which to critique and challenge social and cultural norms.
Available 25 July 2019

This article, originally published in Screen in 2003, argues that the appeal of recent Iranian films to international audiences is due at least in part to their use of 'open', ambiguous, epiphanic images. In answer to concerns about the apolitical trajectory of these films, it suggests that the repressed political dimension returns within the aesthetic form of the open image.

Politique du cinéma iranien
De l’âyatollâh Khomeyni au président Khâtami , Éditions du CNRS, 2004
par Agnés Devictor

L’auteur de ce livre examine tout d’abord le cinéma iranien parce qu’il n’y a pas assez travail à propos de ce cinéma intéressant selon elle. Elle dresse l’histoire et le développement du cinéma iranien avec la dimension politique et culturelle à partir de 1979 jusqu’à aujourd’hui en deux partie. Elle se pose aussi comment le cinéma a été utilisé comme un outil politique et religieux par le nouveau régime après la révolution. Quelles films ont été réalisés et autorisés après la révolution ? Qu’dit l’àyatollâh Khomeyni sur le septième art modern etc