3 Faces

Jafar Panahi, the director of Taxi, forced to be under house arrest, once again managed to make a clever and extremely impressive film, gently yet strongly critically reflecting the conditions in contemporary Iran. And he did it from his car with minimal resources. This time around, playing himself and accompanied by popular actress Behnaz Jafari, he sets out to tour villages to find the truth about a young girl who allegedly committed suicide. The film is very well written and acted and very captivating, although its point is easy to predict. More important in this case is the journey to get to the point. I would like to send you my congratulations and I wish you many salty foreskins. (07/01/2018)

This film didn’t speak to me at all. The message about how tough it is for a woman in Iran to be herself and rebel against her family and her surroundings, repeated all over again, wears out rather quickly and other than that, the film is so intellectually and emotionally empty to the point of being painful. And the interminable discourses of the characters about a bull with golden balls being a rare breed or dried circumcised foreskin having the power of bringing about a better future have not brought me any intellectual satisfaction. Endless torturous takes of someone going somewhere on the path or road alternate with scenes involving loud-mouthed, unsympathetic characters. The thing bored me, bothered me and left me totally cold. [KVIFF 2018] (07/08/2018)