Review of Negar Mottahedeh's book Displaced Allegorie

Kamran Rastegar

Humanities Commons

97 book reviewjdisplaced allegoriesNegar Mottahedeh; Duke University Press, Durham, North Carolina, USA, 2008, 216pp.,ISBN: 978-0-8223-4275-5, $22.95 (Pbk)The publication of Displaced Allegories, by Negar Mottahedeh, augurspromising new developments for the study of post-revolutionary Iraniancinema. Until recently, studies of the rich topics relating to this cinemahave been divided between a number of scholars who have produced largelysociopolitical readings of Iranian films as a ‘national cinema’ (e.g.Dabashi, 2001; Tapper, 2004; Zeydabadi-Nejad, 2009), and a small numberof scholars of film studies who have been limited by their lack of training inthe languages and cultural history of Iran to treat these films significantlybeyond a purely aesthetic dimension (e.g. Mulvey, 2006). In between thesemay be placed a number of auteur studies, largely focusing on the workof one director, Abbas Kiarostami (e.g. Saeed-Vafa and Rosenbaum, 2003;Elena, 2005). But with the publication of Mottahedeh’s Displaced Allegories,students of Iranian cinema will find a scholar able to address both thesocial and the cinematic as well as the auteur dimensions of post-revolutionary Iranian cinema in ways that bring these works into veryfruitful conversation with other areas of film studies, in particular feministfilm theory.In her introduction, Mottahedeh argues that censorial guidelines set out bycultural authorities in the Islamic Republic ‘confront the voyeurism inscribedin cinema spectatorship’ (p. 10); thus in this period, ‘Iranian cinema posits,and opposes, melodrama’s role in establishing the scopophilic coordinates ofcinematic realism in the filmic image globally’ (p. 11). In this, Mottahedehargues, the codes of post-revolutionary cinematic practice resonate with theaims of 1970s and 1980s feminist film theorists who attempted to envisiona ‘negative aesthetics’ to confront the scopophilia of dominant cinema(p. 16). With this link established, she terms Iranian cinema a ‘woman’scinema’ – a claim certain to offer challenges for Western scholars who oftenwould prefer to view Iranian cinema through a presumption of theomnipotence of Iranian Islamist patriarchy (p. 107). Indeed, Mottahedeh’saim is to go beyond the simple ideological binaries that emerge in thedivision of Western/modernist/feminist versus Islamic/traditionalist/patri-archal, which so often seem to inform the study of Iranian cinema,particularly where gender is concerned. For her, the paradox of Iran’s‘woman’s cinema’ is that it has led to an aesthetic revolution in filmmakingfeminist review 97 2011(e14–e16) !c 2011 Feminist Review. 0141-7789/11 www.feminist-review.come14that should inform feminist film theory. The analytical dimensions of her studyfocus largely on readings of works by three significant directors – BahramBayza’i, Abbas Kiarostami and Mohsen Makhmalbaf. Through a series of closereadings of scenes from selected films by each director, Mottahedeh continuallyreturns to a framing question: ‘what might post-revolutionary Iranian cinemacontribute to a feminist critique of international films?’ (p. 140).In the analyses that follow, Mottahedeh pursues a set of discussions of herselected film texts that should excite film scholars, and which reset the measurefor film scholarship on Iranian cinema to one much higher than has beenpredominant to date. Her methodology, which is fundamentally one of closereading, depends not only on an engagement with a variety of film theoryconcepts, but is at the same time flexible and reflective, allowing the filmsthemselves to dictate the theoretical framework rather than the other wayaround. While her readings of selected works by Bayza’i (Chapter 1) andKiarostami (Chapter 2) tend to overshadow the treatment of Makhmalbaf’s work(Chapter 3), nonetheless each engagement offers new insights into the films ofall three directors, and makes clear their unique contributions to thedevelopment of a post-revolutionary cinematic aesthetic.Although for the most part Mottahedeh’s analysis is original and provocative,there are occasional points that suffer from underdevelopment – something thatis quite understandable given the broad ambition of the study. For example,quite often the reader finds that specific discussions linked to the very singularworks of these three filmmakers are then summarized to seemingly represent allof post-revolutionary Iranian cinema. In this, the distances between art-houseauteur cinema and popular cinema in Iran are overlooked, despite manydifferences between them. Given this, the question remains unanswered: if bothsectors are covered by the same censorship codes, why have they adopted suchdifferent aesthetic responses? However, rather than disappoint, even suchellipses only serve to remind the reader of the fact that the study of post-revolutionary Iranian cinema requires much more substantive study, and that thefield has too long lacked the theoretical sophistication or originality of work suchas Mottahedeh’s. These gaps are largely a result of the nearly impossible taskMottahedeh has faced in needing to both lay out general foundational argumentsabout Iranian cinema as well as to develop nuanced theses on questions ofaesthetics and ideology as read through selected films. Nonetheless, there is nodoubt that Mottahedeh’s Displaced Allegories must be seen as a major andwelcome intervention into the field of Iranian cinema studies. Beyond inspiringstudents of Iranian film and cultural studies, one hopes that the work will alsochallenge other film theorists to look anew at Iranian cinema, reframing theapplication of feminist film theory to non-Western cinemas.Kamran Rastegarfeminist review 97 2011 e15referencesDabashi, H. (2001) Close-up Iranian Cinema, New York: Verso.Elena, A. (2005) The Cinema of Abbas Kiarostami, London: Saqi Books.Mulvey, L. (2006) Death 24x a Second: Stillness and the Moving Image, London: Reaktion Books.Saeed-Vafa, M. and Rosenbaum, J. (2003) Abbas Kiarostami, Urbana, Illinois: University of Illinois.Tapper, R. (2004) editor, The New Iranian Cinema: Politics, Representation and Identity, New York:IB Tauris.Zeydabadi-Nejad, S. (2009) The Politics of Iranian Cinema: Film and Society in the Islamic Republic,London: Routledge.doi:10.1057/fr.2010.46feminist review 97 2011 book reviewe16Reproducedwith permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibitedwithout permission.

Review: Displaced Allegories by Negar Mottahedeh

https://hcommons.org/deposits/download/hc:34064/CONTENT/19_review-of-mottahedeh_displaced-allegories.pdf/

Review: Displaced Allegories by Negar Mottahedeh

Abstract

Similar works

Full text

Available Versions

Humanities Commons