Today is Thursday the 11th of Ordibehesht or the 1st of May. It is a public holiday here in Tehran. Not, of course, because its International Workers Day, but because of the anniversary of the death of the prophet Mohammed. But it makes no difference what day it is for those of us who are second-class citizens, or ambulant pieces of flesh attached to legs, as Mesbah Yazdi describes us, who are of no use to the Islamic Republic of Iran.
I was up all night, glued to the computer screen to earn my daily bread. I fell asleep at 6:30 in the morning and managed briefly to escape my troubles, which I know will spell my end one day: exhaustion, backache, eye strain, headaches, heart palpitations. I was shattered.
At around 10:30 Afshin calls to say that Mahmoud Vakili has been arrested. My brain is still asleep. I try to understand what he is saying. He says that Mahmouds sister called him to say that Mahmoud was arrested on Tuesday. She said that we should not contact their house directly. Afshin says that he doesnt have Alis number and asks me to call him and let him know.
Afshin does have Alis number. He is too afraid to call him, afraid of getting caught in some kind of trouble. Ali is well-known. Only last week he was telling us that his phone was tapped. Not that hes a political activist; hes just a film critic. But like all of us, he can now be found guilty of this new crime.
My brain slowly kicks into gear. I too am afraid, why lie? We are those simpler souls who sought to steer clear of any sort of political fuss in this accursed corner of the planet. We eliminated every shred of ambition from our lives and instead of seeking solace in drugs, money or womanising, we turned to culture to art and cinema. We chose to step into a dream the dream of things we dont have. Now, they are shattering this dream with lashes of the whip, with jail, torture, dishonour and accusations.
This makes us afraid.
The travails of Mahmoud Vakili
Who is Mahmoud Vakili, the man who has been arrested? Unlike Kambiz Kaheh, Mohammad Abdi, Amir Ezati, Yassamin Sofi and Sina Motallebi he is not well-known. So when he is arrested there are no protests.
Iranian film culture under attack
Kambiz Kaheh (a film magazine journalist), and Said Mostaghasi (of Haftenameh magazine) were arrested at their homes on 26 February 2003. Mohammad Abdi (editor-in-chief of the monthly Honar Haftom) and Amir Ezati (of Mahnameh Film) were arrested on 28 February. On 1 March, film music critic Yasamin Soufi was arrested by officers from Adareh Amaken the department that usually deals with moral crimes. Other journalists Abbas Abdi, Hojjatoleslam Hasan Yousefi Eshkevari, Akbar Ganji, Hossein Ghaziyan, Siamak Pourzand, Khalil Rostamkhani, Said Sadr and Nasser Zarafshan are already serving prison sentences of between five and eleven years for the non-violent exercise of their right to freedom of expression.
There was a time, many years ago, when Mahmoud Vakilis heart and mind were consumed by books and films. He would not conform. But one day he understood that you cant live in peace here if you choose to be yourself. You must conform. Thus, he became one of the millions who concluded that in this land of gold and power, of dishonesty and hypocrisy; of ignorance in the name of God, where human dignity is crushed, there was no place for him.
Together with his sister Mahtab and her young child he left Iran. For a year they traipsed around Holland and Austria, Germany and Italy, Bulgaria and Turkey, hoping that some of the well-heeled citizens in these countries might understand or care about what it was they wished to escape from and afford them protection. No one did. Just over a year later sadder, more broken and crumpled than ever they returned to the rubble they had tried to leave, to Iran.
Mahmoud Vakili did not fit anywhere in the system. There was no crack through which he could gain entry. Finally, he became a filmi, an occupation which can only exist in this wasteland. He would collect films on tape and DVD, throw them in his shoulder-bag and rent them to people. But there was a great difference between him and the others who rented films: in his archive you could find films by Ford, Hawks, von Sternberg and Griffith, as well as by Lynch, Jarmusch, Kusturica, Aronofsky, Almodovar and Von Trier. You could see films by genre, or choose a historical period to study; you could watch New Wave films or American independent cinema; you could start in Mexico or Brazil and go all the way to Greece and Georgia or Kazakhstan always seeing good, thought-provoking films.
Even after choosing such a humble profession, Mahmoud remained faithful to himself. He never sold out. What he did for his customers, for us, was to create a moving institute of film and culture. The days we visited Mahmoud were good and happy ones in our sad lives. We would go to his house and stay there for a couple of hours, chatting about films, cinema and the issues of the day. For a while, we were able to forget the anxieties that suffocate us here.
Sunday was the last day we saw Mahmoud. He wasnt feeling well. He told us that Reza Jayeri, his partner, had been arrested. He was worried. He was afraid, as Afshin was. As I am. As, these days, are all those who deal with culture and the arts, those who steer clear of the noisy heroics and pretences of freedom-fighting. We said: Should we stop coming? and he said No, keep coming. We said: Get your films out of the house. But I dont think he had time. Ali said he had seen Kambiz Kaheh who is free on bail awaiting his trial. Kaheh had said nothing; he was not working, not watching films, nor writing, Ali said.
Of course not! Those in charge act as they do because they seek this very result. Theirs is a silent terrorism directed at individuals, a terrorism of minds, of thoughts. It seeks to drive its victims into isolation. They know what they are doing. What can a Kambiz Kaheh do if he stops watching films and writing and thinking?
A destructive fire
Those in charge know exactly what they are doing. Carefully and patiently they have identified the most complete collections and archives there are and have proceeded to destroy them: Amir Ezati, Kambiz Kaheh and Mohammad Abdis film and book archives were among the greatest resources available in this barren land. Now they are gone forever. Another such archive was Mahmouds. We were right to be worried about it. It too has now been eliminated.
Now our Forces of Law and Order will present an exhibition to proudly demonstrate how the roots of corruption have been eradicated. And later, after the exhibition, what will become of the films and books? Some, if they contain action scenes or perhaps titillating scenes, and a few other spectaculars like Ben Hur or Gone With the Wind will end up in the homes of some official or other who lives off government hand-outs. The rest will be destroyed.
Farenheit 451 : Francois Truffauts film of a dictatorship which burns books to chloroform minds has a chilling echo in Iran today
I look at those films which I picked out this week. How pleased I was to get a DVD of Lynchs Lost Highway and of John Fords How the West Was Won; how delighted that a decent quality copy of Roman Polanskis The Pianist was already circulating in Iran and that we could watch it. How I regret my decision not to take The Enigma of Kasper Hauser, to leave it till next week. What are those parasites going to do with it now? Here, the life of the body is left intact but the heart and mind are wiped out. Do you think the mullahs have seen Farenheit 451? I feel the few films I have in hand have been spared the destructive fire.
The time of the hypocrites
The frustrated and unemployed young men who populate the country, themselves the fruit of the revolution, can easily get their hands on any brand of porn movie. At every public intersection and busy square such films are readily available.
Yet a stones throw away a uniformed thug will be harassing a young woman whose hair may have slipped out from under her scarf, while some young man walking along with a young woman friend has to answer to the thug to avoid being sentenced to lashes of the whip. Not far from them a prostitute will be stepping into the luxury car of some devout Haji to sell herself for a paltry sum of ten or twenty thousand toman in order not to go hungry.
Meanwhile, the mullahs stand in prayer and mourn Imam Hossein. They take their wives to Mecca and Syria, and temporary wives to the freeport zones and buy stocks. They smuggle, acquire exclusive dealerships, export girls, then attend Friday prayers and chant Death to America.
We whose lives are plundered often have had occasion to quote Osip Mandelstam who said that everything in this world could be regained except hope. But hope has fled the weak flicker of our gaze. We are in our 20s and 30s, but we are already old. There will be no miracles.
Translated from Farsi by Dorna Khazeni and Jahanshah Javid
