It’s well-known by the film community that director Jafar Panahi has been punished by the Iranian state due to the themes of his work. The 2010 sentence banned Panahi from making films for 20 years, in addition to six years under house arrest as well as denying him permission to travel outside the borders of Iran. The films made under these conditions—“This Is Not a Film” (2011), “Closed Curtain” (2013) and “Taxi” (2015)—have been justly celebrated. A major entry of 2018’s festival circuit and a recipient of the Best Screenplay award at Cannes, “3 Faces” touches down in Montreal for the 47th edition of the Festival du Nouveau Cinéma. With his latest picture, Panahi challenges the expectations of clandestine cinema to craft a modest, humanist gem.
“3 Faces” opens with a striking, even shocking sequence. Shot with the portrait mode of a cell phone, a young woman (Marziyeh Rezaei, playing a variation of herself, as do all the principal performers) recounts her precarious circumstances from the interior of a cave. We learn that she has reached out to a famous actress (Behnaz Jafari) to help her convince her parents to let her move to Tehran to train at a conservatory. The clip comes to a grisly conclusion—Marziyeh hangs herself—and Behnaz, deeply troubled by the footage, sets off to the remote village in order to confirm the veracity of the image. Driving her is none other than Jafar Panahi himself, acting as chronicler and witness to a story that belongs to the women at its center.
Besides its initial intrigue, the scenario of “3 Faces” is a structure for Panahi to organize various encounters as Behnaz and Jafar make their way through the Iranian countryside. The charms of Marziyeh’s village accumulate over the film’s runtime, most memorably a humorous honking system to determine right of way on a precarious single-lane road. The dialogue switches between Farsi and the local Turkish dialect, familiar to Jafar and at times employed to keep Behnaz out of conversations intended for male ears only. Whether Panahi’s intimacy with the region is a biographical detail or fictional is insignificant, but the director fashions a warm, convincing portrait of the remote community—including its entrenched sexism.
The biggest thrill of “3 Faces” occurs in the early going of the narrative; simply enough, the characters get out of the car. The interior vehicle shot has become a hallmark of Iranian cinema, coming to prominence in the films of Abbas Kiarostami, such as “Taste of Cherry” and “Five.” Of course, Panahi made this restriction all his own with “Taxi,” even winning the top prize at the Berlin Film Festival for his efforts. “3 Faces” again draws comparisons to the work of Kiarostami; in this case, “The Wind Will Carry Us,” as a vehicle drives the dusty winding hills of rural Iran in search of the young girl. That’s to say that the film conjures imagery—and moves at the expected pace—familiar to fans of the country’s arthouse exports. Panahi is a major filmmaker in his own right and certainly operates under no shadow.
The humanist question at the center of the story is the depth of Behnaz’s obligation to the young stranger, who has singled out this famous figure to be her savior. The actress is justly upset by her implication in Marziyeh’s pain, and the flow of emotions that the mystery brings about speaks to a fundamental solidarity between Iranian women. Despite her cultural status, Behnaz remains the target of microaggressions that lurk under the surface of rural hospitality, as the villagers are particularly suspect of women that ‘perform.’
Panahi’s statement on the status and intersectionality of Iranian women emerges from a deceptive simplicity. Held in a sustained long shot, Behnaz joins two other women to stay overnight an isolated home as the director remains in the car. From this camera vantage, we can see the silhouettes of the trio dancing in the window. As a filmmaker, Panahi observes the modesty of women demanded by Iranian culture, but nonetheless nods towards the boundless spirit of those same women, something that he, like us, remain distanced from. It’s the most excruciating act of restraint in “3 Faces”—this intimate celebration of three strangers is more tantalizing than dramatic detail—but also a moving and wise observation by a master chronicler of human beings.
Handled in the United States by Kino Lorber, “3 Faces” is unlikely to find a larger audience than those with the built-in patience for this type of soft-spoken, finely-observed cinema—even though it meets (if not necessarily exceeds) the lofty bar of quality set by Iranian cinema’s classic output. That said, director Jafar Panahi clearly isn’t resting on his laurels, crafting a film larger in scale than his recent features but nonetheless aware of their technical lessons, namely cell phone camerawork. The opening shot remains an intriguing short film in its own right, serving—as do all of Panahi’s films—as a testament to artistic expression as a fundamental right. [B+]