This Is Not a Film

Directed by Jafar Panahi and Mojtaba Mirtahmasb

(Not rated)

****

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Barred by his government from making a new movie, the Iranian filmmaker Jafar Panahi has instead created “a masterpiece,” said A.O. Scott in The New York Times. Panahi’s new video essay is indeed “not a film.” While under house arrest in his Tehran apartment, he used his iPhone to begin recording himself speaking on the phone, watching movies, and feeding his daughter’s pet iguana. His video essay grew in unexpected ways, and by the time it was smuggled out of the country to be shown at the Cannes film festival, it had become “a subtle, strange, and haunting work of art.” Every scene that this government critic has given us proves “how much of a natural filmmaker he is,” said Kenneth Turan in the Los Angeles Times. “Even when he turns his camera on the most mundane activities, his passion for cinema enters into and enlarges the picture.” The resulting work is “an act of defiance,” said Karina Longworth in The Village Voice. Better yet, it’s “a gripping entertainment, swinging wildly”—along with its protagonist and principal creator—“from manic highs to somber lows.”