A provoking drama about a couple of young musicians who want to form a band and escape the censorship-controlled Iran in order to truly express their talents.
No One Knows About Persian Cats was something of a film festival darling over the past year. Gaining praise and nominations it was still seen by many as nothing more than a foreign arthouse movie. They could not be more wrong. It is a film that highlights how many of us take our freedom of expression for granted.
The film is a pseudo-documentary following Negar and Ashkan (the characters share their names with the actors), two young musicians recently released from prison and determine not to let their previous experience stall their musical goals. Recruiting Nader (Behdad) as their manager they travel the city looking to recruit people into their band and leave the country to play gigs in London.
Like the characters in the film, director Bahman Ghobadi, continuing the trends he started in Half Moon and Turtles Can Fly, shot the film as under the radar as possible. Production took place over 17 days with no permits relying on guerrilla filmmaking in its purest form. Throughout the film Negar and Ashkan encounter endless forms of music. Heavy metal to local folk to rap to indie rock, all are captured in fly-on-the-wall style, further highlighting the fight to express in a repressed country.
While the camera is always kinetic the locations that the musicians use to rehearse are equally guerilla in their ingenuity. Shacks built on roofs where the concerned father below can suddenly shut off power for fear of the police hearing the music, or cowsheds that, in spite of the cow’s obvious distress at the loud music, offer an isolated place to escape prying ears.
Interspersed with this are musical interludes shot in Western-style videos that highlight the country and its people in wonderful pastiche-like montages. These moments carry a valuable undercurrent to the film and always remind you that while the music is playing there is a country outside that is ruled by a government dependant on religion rather than freedom.
It is by no means a suicide inducing film though. Throughout the film is peppered with wonderful characters and moments of genuine humour. Like David, the man acquiring visas and passports for Negar and Ashkan, who berates Nader for bringing him a film with too much romance and not enough violence. Ghobadi always cuts to all of the key players in the scene creating a sense of character by their reactions rather than over expositional dialogue.
The performances lend themselves to the documentary-style heightening the overall sense of reality that the film brings. Ashkan Koshanejad brings a passion to his role that makes you invest in his musical crusade that much more. That he has moments of anger hidden beneath his quiet surface only emphasises the drive of the character. Negar Shegaghi is at times reserved in her role but considering this a strict Muslim country goes some way to highlighting that her plight is all the more poignant. She does bring a huge amount of heart to the film and as such makes her the most attractive character on offer. However, it is Hamed Behdad as Nader who brings the film to life. His boundless energy and rapid-fire speech draw some brilliant moments of comedic relief. A scene in which he negotiates his way out of a fine and a lashing is as funny as anything a Stiller or Sandler could conjure but with boundless subtext to boot.
Essentially a broad look at a group of musicians who simply want the chance to do what they love. What it lacks in plot, it more than makes up for in heart and passion. The bitter ending may be a little forced but on this basis we should all know about Persian Cats.
