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Gabbeh
A gabbeh is a type of carpet made in Iran. Gabbeh is also the name of the heroine of this
story, a young woman who comes across an old couple while they are busy examing a gabbeh.
She explains the story written in the carpet, showing how it reveals her life: she was in
love with a man her father forbade her to marry. The lover follows her family at a
distance while they trek around the countryside.
The film is in farsi with English subtitles, and is banned in Iran for being 'subversive'.
Review: Gabbeh
Starring Shaghayegh Djodat, Hossein Moharami.
Written and directed by Mohsen Makhmalbaf.
The good thing about censorship, in both concept and execution, is that it forces artists
who labor under it to think more creatively than they might previously have considered
possible. Iranian filmmaker Mohsen Makhmalbaf, who won't sacrifice his poetry for his
politics (or vice versa) knows this well.
Take his latest film, Gabbeh, for example -- the movie picked to open Salaam Cinema!,
Cinematheque's upcoming retrospective of Makhmalbaf's work. An elliptical parable about
female self-determination, Gabbeh revolves around a bickering elderly couple who rescue a
literally magic carpet(called a "gabbeh") from the river near their house. The
carpet is worked with a mysterious pattern that may or may not represent two fleeing
lovers; as the couple examine it, a vision of the carpet's original weaver -- a young
nomad woman also named Gabbeh -- appears to them.
Gabbeh is in love with a horseman who we see only from a distance. Prevented from joining
him by her father, Gabbeh has woven the carpet to express, or possibly to bring about, her
hopes for the future. But as she talks with the old couple, we realize that she yearns for
events which may already have come to pass.
So far, so enticing, but not particularly threatening, right? Yet, Gabbe has already been
judged "subversive" by Iran's cinematic powers that be, who refuse to release
it.
"Western cinema comes from a tradition of painting, of visual images,"
Makhmalbaf explained to me at last year's Toronto International Film Festival. "But
Islamic religious law bans painting or sculpting, because it prohibits any representation
of the human form -- the only things allowedare miniatures and patterns, like the pattern
of the gabbeh." Makhmalbaf's way of getting far enough around these traditional
strictures to produce his movies is a fascinating one: if the censors won't let him put
something directly on screen, he'll still include it in the story -- he'll just keep it
out of frame, letting his subjects slyly comment on their own exclusion. He also often
blurs the lines between reality and film byinserting documentary elements, thus commenting
on Iranian daily life while avoiding any overt political statement.
A Moment Of Innocence, for example -- also included in Cinematheque's program -- revolves
around Makhmalbaf's attempt to restage his own youthfully militant attack on a policeman,
which resulted in him being jailed and tortured. After advertising for extras in a local
paper, Makhmalbaf was amazed when the actual policeman he had attacked turned up, wanting
to reprise his own part. The movie slyly follows the policeman rather than Makhmalbaf,
watching as he is subtly humiliated by the process of filmmaking. The tables have turned,
and the policeman has stepped into an artificial world where Makhmalbaf -- the aloof and
all powerful director -- now controls everything.
"People ask me if I'm in trouble now with the regime at home," comments
Makhmalbaf, who hopes to film his next movie in India, far away from Iran's strictures.
"But to me, the mission of a filmmaker is simply to make films. When he can't do
that, then he's in trouble."
--GEMMA FILES
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