Dariush Mehrjui - Film Career After The Iranian Revolution 1979- Present

Film Career After The Iranian Revolution 1979- Present

The Iranian Revolution had been ongoing since 1977 through strikes and demonstrations. The Iran's monarchy collapsed on February 11, 1979 when guerrillas and rebel troops overwhelmed troops loyal to the Shah in armed street fighting. Iran voted by national referendum to become an Islamic Republic on April 1, 1979, and to approve a new theocratic constitution whereby Khomeini became Supreme Leader of the country, in December 1979.

Mehrjui has stated that he, "enthusiastically took part in the revolution, shooting miles of reels of its daily events." After the revolution, the censorship of the Pahlavi regime was lifted, and for a time, artistic freedom seemed to flourish in the country. It was reported that the Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini saw Gaav on Iranian television and liked it, calling it "very instructive" and commissioning new prints to be made for distribution. However the Khomeini government would go on to impose its own rules for censorship in Iran, specifically laws that were in accordance to Islamic law. It was also required that a government official be present during the shooting of all films.

Mehrjui then directed Hayat-e Poshti Madrese-ye Adl-e Afagh (The School We Went to) in 1980. The film stars Ezzatollah Entezami and Ali Nassirian and is from a story by Fereydoon Doostdar. The film was sponsored by the Iranian Institute for the Intellectual Development of Children and Young Adults, whose filmmaking department was co-founded by Abbas Kiarostami. The film, seen as an allegory for the recent revolution, is about a group of high school students who join forces and rebel against their authoritative and abusive school principle. Film critic Hagir Daryoush criticized both the film and Mehrjui as propaganda and a work of the new regime more than Mehrjui himself.

In 1981, Mehrjui and his family traveled to Paris and remained there for several years, along with several other Iranian refugees in France. During this time he made a feature-length semi-documentary about the poet Arthur Rimbaud for French TV, Voyage au Pays de Rimbaud in 1983. It was shown at the 1983 Venice Film Festival and at the 1983 London Film Festival.

In 1985, Mehrjui and his family returned to Iran and Mehrjui resumed his film career under the new regime.

In Hamoun (1990), a portrait of an intellectual whose life is falling apart, Mehrjui sought to depict his generation's post-revolutionary turn from politics to mysticism. Hamoon was voted the best Iranian film ever by readers and contributors to the Iranian journal Film Monthly.

In 1995, Mehrjui made Pari, an unauthorized loose film adaptation of J. D. Salinger's book Franny and Zooey. Though the film could be distributed legally in Iran since the country has no official copyright relations with the United States, Salinger had his lawyers block a planned screening of the film at Lincoln Center in 1998. Mehrjui called Salinger's action "bewildering," explaining that he saw his film as "a kind of cultural exchange." His follow-up film, 1997's Leila, is a melodrama about an urban, upper-middle-class couple who learn that the wife is unable to bear children.

Mehrjui's upcoming movie is Rumi's Kimia (film), starring Golshifteh Farahani and based on a novel, Kimia Khatoon, by Saideh Ghods.