The Lincoln Library Film Society will resume screenings tonight (September 10) at 7 p.m. with another installment of “cinemavericks”—innovative filmmakers who did their own thing and guided the art form beyond its inherited strictures. The LLFS will screen the film work of Forough Farrokhzad (1935-1967), one of Iran’s greatest 20th-century poets. Although she only made one film in her short life, it is considered today to be one of the finest moments in Iranian cinema. The House is Black merges visuals with poetry like no other film has done, configuring searing images of reality to match the lines of Farrokhzad’s beautifully sparse and devastating words.
In the eyes of Iranian society, Farrokhzad was never conventional. She was a strong, independent woman who dressed in Western clothing and challenged traditional female roles. After she and her first husband divorced in 1954, she published her first volume of poetry, The Captive. In the male-dominated literary circles of Tehran, her feminine, often erotically charged poems attracted much negative attention. To this day she remains a controversial personality in her home country, but whether loved or loathed, her voice is undeniably unique. Her long-running romantic affair with film producer Ebrahim Golestan led to her involvement in filmmaking, and she even made a brief appearance in his wonderful The Brick and the Mirror (1964). Sadly, she died in a car crash in 1967, just after hearing from a fortune-teller that tragedy would soon strike. Her writing has lived many lives in the years that have followed, published posthumously, banned for several years following the revolution, and translated into other languages across the world.
Iran / 1963 / in Farsi with English subtitles (22 minutes)
Ostensibly a documentary about the residents of a leper colony near Tabriz, Farrokhzad weaves didactic narration (along with Koranic and Old Testament passages) into her own elegant verse, alternately contrasting beauty with suffering, and at times rendering the two indistinguishable. The popular notion that she was utilizing her subjects to create political commentary (making their situation into a symbol for life under the shah, for the atrophy of the spirit under repression) is perhaps too narrow an interpretation, as it does little to accommodate her broad humanism. She does not turn to artistic dissociation, nor does she opt for an affected sense of empathy. Instead she distills the impact of the images, seeking out their basic connection to the human experience—which she explores through her own concepts of pain and transcendence—while at the same time presenting them with all of their rough, confronting integrity.
Iran / 1961 / with English narration (24 minutes)
Directed by Ebrahim Golestan
“I Shall Salute the Sun Once Again”
Iran / 1997 / in English (62 minutes)
Directed by Mansooreh Saboori
This documentary about Farrokhzad’s life and work that combines analyses of prominent themes from her writing with her own biographical narrative. It includes readings from some selected passages, which confirm her vaunted place in modern Iranian poetry.
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