3 Faces
Directed by Jafar Panahi
Iran | 2018 | Fiction | 100 min | Farsi w/English subtitles
Film Source: Kino Lorber
Awards / premier festivals: TIFF, Cannes – Best Screenplay
Sponsor: 05401
Also showing Friday, October 26 at 2:15PM
Eight years after receiving a two-decade filmmaking ban by the Iranian government, Jafar Panahi, a VTIFF favorite (This Is Not a Film; Taxi), returns with a new film that premiered at the Cannes Film Festival this year. Once again, we find him acting in another story seemingly pulled from his real experiences. The film opens with a video shot on a cell phone showing a desperate plea for help from a teenage girl, whose family forbids her to pursue her dream of entering the entertainment world. That video ends with the girl’s apparent suicide on camera. We learn that the video was sent to Panahi, begging him to forward it to celebrity actress Behnaz Jafari. And so the main film begins with Panahi and Jafari on a road trip to determine the fate of the girl. Is the suicide a fake? Is it real? They become involved with the girl’s small rural community, contemplating the alienation and yearning at the root of provincial life and the status of women in a male-dominated society. This alone would have been fascinating enough. Throw into the mix Panahi’s meta-narrative — did he construct the whole opening in order to entice the movie star to join him on a journey of discovery? Is he really directing this film despite the ban (as his mother suspects in a sudden phone call to him)? “No,” he replies, “I’m just driving along with some friends.” ~ OY
