ON THE WSWS
Donate to
the WSWS!

News Feed
Contact the
WSWS
Editorial Board
New Today
News & Analysis
Workers Struggles
Arts Review
History
Science
Polemics
Philosophy
Correspondence
Archive
About WSWS
About the ICFI
Help
Books Online

OTHER
LANGUAGES
German
French
Italian
Russian
Polish
Czech
Serbo-Croatian
Spanish
Portuguese
Turkish
Sinhala-
Tamil
Indonesian

LEAFLETS
Download in
PDF format

Interview with Parviz Shahbazi,
director of Traveler from the South

By David Walsh
20 October 1997

I began by observing that a number of Iranian films had made a deep impression on audiences in North America and Europe. I asked Parviz Shahbazi what this said about Iranian filmmaking, on the one hand, and North American and European filmmaking, on the other?

"This strong impression [made by Iranian cinema] is also evident to us," he began, "and it is encouraging, and we are happy about that. That's why we make movies. If a movie does not influence its audience it's not a good movie. And I think the source of this influence is that our films consider bigger human issues; things that have become fairly painful issues in today's world, such as loneliness. Especially in the Western world this loneliness is deeply evident. It is possible for someone to be in a crowded environment, but to be emotionally isolated. This loneliness of course also exists in Iran. In some sense it is a human problem. So consideration of these issues has a similar effect on everyone.

"Filmmakers reflect their society. A filmmaker is like the thermometer, and reflects the temperature of his environment. In the best films, the filmmaker does not judge, he leaves judging to his audience."

Why, I asked Shahbazi, had he chosen a character from the south of Iran?

Because, he said, in the southern part of the country the people have certain attitudes and mannerisms that are very foreign to Tehran. Someone who had an unusual behavior would have more of a conflict with the people there. He demonstrates, by contrast, the attitudes that exist in Tehran.

I asked him about his views on the relationship between art, film and reality.

"I'll express my opinion," Shahbazi said, "because I'm not a theoretician. The truth in daily life is very scattered and unconnected. If we want to show a day in someone's life and go through the details of the reality of that life, we would need five volumes of a book. As a result we have to be selective and create an invisible relation between the different elements that we find so that an audience does not get a sense of scatteredness, so that one can express a five-volume book in 80 minutes. At its best we only make an impression of reality, not the complete reality."

"What influence can or should art have on the lives of people?" I asked.

"Allow me to talk only about cinema," he commented. "It can at its best influence relations, behavior and people's mentality. Of course, there has never been an artistic piece that caused, for example, revolution, or some important social event. We don't have such a thing in the history of art. It does have an invisible influence."

His own film was advocating the value, I suggested, of helping other people. It expresses, he replied, the fact that all people may need each other's help at any point.

I asked him whether he was optimistic about the future of cinema.

"The Toronto festival left a negative impression on me," Shahbazi explained, "in some respects. Because here I really sense how much the big commercial films can, through advertising, ensure their own success and isolate small films."

Thoughts about the 1997 Toronto film festival
Film, social reality and authenticity
[6 October 1997]