Ilker Çatak’s Turkish language, Berlinale Golden Bear winner, Yellow Letters, and Hossein Keshavarz and Maryam Ataei’s Persian film The Friend’s House Is Here have a lot in common, appearing to be like two sides of the same coin. Both are set in the world of performance arts and pivot on the theme of freedom of expression as against censorship, political authoritarianism and repression.
The Friend’s House Is Here adds to it a further layer of female sisterhood and artistic solidarity, acquiring urgency in the light of the “Women, Life, Freedom” movement. Moreover, at a time when USA-Israel and Iran are locked in a conflict with catastrophic global ramifications, it feels entirely fitting to look back at a US-Iran co-production (something unthinkable in today’s milieu) that played in the US Dramatic Competition segment of Sundance bagging the festival’s Special Jury award for its ensemble cast.
The title of the film is a hat-tip to Abbas Kiarostami’s classic parable on childhood, conscience and innocence, Where is the Friend’s House? (1987). However, Keshavarz and Ataei, also the film’s screenwriters, take the viewers into the rarely seen world of the underground arts in contemporary Iran, driven by creativity, talent, passion and the resistant, subversive energy of young artistes, in this case two women, Pari (Mahshad Bahram) and Hanna (Hana Mana), who also happen to be best friends and roommates. “This country is full of artists,” says Hanna wondering if it would be allowed to stay that way.
The film also gives us a peep into modern Tehran where, antithetical to Western perception, women can be seen moving around freely, often without the hijab and sporting trendy attire with inscriptions of Rumi’s poetry.
Theatre is where Pari can breathe free and express with candour though illegally so, without the required governmental permission. “Art doesn’t need permission” is her strong belief. Hanna is a modern dancer with an Instagram account where she posts videos of her performances in front of landmarks like the Freedom Tower, again without permission from the authorities.
Like all good things, the bubble of liberation doesn’t remain untouched by the reality of absolutism, the progressive dreamland soon comes under the surveillance of the conservative forces. It lends an edginess and disquiet to the narrative, with cinematographer Ali Ehsani and composer Arian Saleh helping build a sense of uneasy propulsion with Keshavarz’s editing as an ally. At the same time they also bring alive the joy of creation, the gossip, fun and jokes of the hang-outs and a persistent and infectious sense of optimism and energy. Politics might interfere with the arts but doesn’t pull down the spirit of artistes eventually.
Keshavarz and Ataei shot the film stealthily (and smuggled it to play at Sundance) in tune with the clandestine arts scene that it brings to fore. So, there’s an observational, fly on the wall approach. There’s also a constant overlap between the world of avant garde theatre and dance with commonplace reality. Theatre mimics life as Pari’s play inspired by Hanna seems to eerily foreshadow their own fearful future.
At the end of the day The Friend’s House Is Here is a love letter to artistes. It’s a celebration not just of their individual artistic integrity, defiance and dissent but of the community for having each other’s back in the face of political intrusions, something immensely happy, heartwarming and moving.
With their unvarnished performances, Mahshad Bahram, Hana Mana, Farzad Karen (as Hanna’s boyfriend Ali), among others, don’t just bring the poise and fellowship of artistes but the grace of Iranian society at large into focus. The goodness and humanity of people across the world as a sign of eternal hope and faith against the transgressions of pernicious regimes.