
Mohammad Rasoulof’s Top10
Iranian director, writer, and producer Mohammad Rasoulof was born in Shiraz, Iran, and has made eight feature films. Though none have screened in his home country due to censorship, his films have been admired around the world. Much of his work has premiered at the Cannes Film Festival and received accolades there, including the Special Jury Prize, the FIPRESCI Prize, and the Un Certain Regard Award. His latest film, The Seed of the Sacred Fig, is nominated for an Academy Award.
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1
Jim Jarmusch
Down by Law
What amazed me and made me love Down by Law was the script. It shows us to what extent artistic freedom can exist and how many formal laws of screenwriting can be broken. It also shows the extent to which you can play with the audience’s expectations. It’s a film about three prisoners, but rather than focusing on their escape, it emphasizes the relationship among them. I loved that, as well as the way Jim Jarmusch treats these characters goes against the conventions of dramatic storytelling.
The visual form of the film is also very interesting and beautiful. I really admire Jarmsuch’s courage as an artist.
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2
Michael Haneke
Benny’s Video
I love Michael Haneke’s work. He’s always investigating deep ethical questions, and I find myself reflecting on their themes for a long time after watching his films. The first Haneke I saw was The Seventh Continent, and I was fascinated and intrigued by the way he dealt with daily life.
What’s so interesting about Benny’s Video is how he tells a very simple story about ethics and the importance of learning using a very limited set of tools. I particularly loved the photography in the film. The use of the video footage, which is really the engine of the narrative, has the feeling of a documentary home video. It shows how you can tell an intricate and complex psychological story with minimal means.
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3
Joel Coen and Ethan Coen
No Country for Old Men
Joel and Ethan Coen are very interesting filmmakers. They tell stories in a different way from anyone else, and they’re just so marvelous and amazing. I love all of their work and can’t think of a single film of theirs that hasn’t spoken to me. I met them for the first time in 2013, and I was struck by the impression of how similar they are to their films.
They’re very good at making movies that entertain the audience but also elicit profound questions. How they can pull off both these things at the same time is really quite incredible. Of course, their work is also executed with such beauty and technical precision.After watching No Country for Old Men, I found myself reflecting for a long time on what the film is about, and for me it’s the idea of being born again. It’s almost like a snake shedding its skin. It’s about the necessity of discarding old ways of thinking.
Javier Bardem’s performance is outstanding. The camera has a unique relationship with him, and he has this extraordinary gaze, which accrues more significance as the film goes on. Each time I see Bardem in a different film, I think of his eyes in No Country for Old Men.
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4
Sam Peckinpah
Straw Dogs
While I was working on the script for The Seed of the Sacred Fig, I realized that Straw Dogs was influencing my writing.
I love the editing, as well as the cinematography and the excellent performances. It’s a film about the confrontation between an individual and society, between one character and all the others. The protagonist is fighting for his own survival, and you realize that there’s a relationship between survival and creativity.
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5
Stanley Kubrick
Dr. Strangelove, or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb
Stanley Kubrick’s work is incredibly deep, and I enjoy watching his films a great deal. Dr. Strangelove is an amazing political satire, but it also makes you feel how defenseless you are in the face of autocracy. How Kubrick is able to balance the fantastical dimension of the film with this great political heaviness is such an inspiration.
It’s also very interesting to note how much directorial control he had over every element of the film. He has this amazing mastery of every aspect, which allows him to create a whole world down to the tiniest detail—it’s in the performances, the sound design, the cinematography.
Unfortunately, I’ve never had the chance to see this film (or any film on this list) on the big screen, because that’s not possible in Iran. No cinema screens any film that’s not Iranian and doesn’t comply with censorship. So I’ve always imagined what it would be like to watch a film by Kubrick on the big screen. It would certainly afford me the ability to see his extraordinary precision more clearly.
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6
Amir Naderi
The Runner
For Iranian filmmakers of my generation, Amir Naderi is a maestro. We learned filmmaking by watching his films. At a time when there was so much repression and everything was very difficult, he shed a light in the dark and showed us the magic that cinema is capable of. His extraordinary images teach us what strong results you can get with very limited means. And in terms of storytelling, his films show us the elements of drama in a split second. Through his work, I came to understand the value of repetition.
In The Runner, he creates a city that does not actually exist, but it looks like it does; you don’t know where it is, but you understand it. This film also showed me that it’s the attempt that is important, not the final goal. You’re like the runner: it doesn’t matter where you’re going to arrive; what matters is the act of running, the journey.
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7
Ken Loach
I, Daniel Blake
When you adore a filmmaker, some of their works will usually speak to you more than others, but I find all of Ken Loach’s films to be a great inspiration. And not only his films but his way of life. He’s a filmmaker who knows how to reflect his social values in his work.
I, Daniel Blake is very special in his filmography. On the one hand it’s as if he’s discarded everything. The film is totally spare, and you feel that you’re only there with the image—and yet the emotional dimension of the film is so strong. You feel like it’s just the protagonist existing and the camera following him everywhere. In a lot of films, it’s almost as if you can hear the voices of the crew or the director calling, “Action!” It’s very clear that you’re watching cinema. But in I, Daniel Blake, you never feel that or hear those voices—it’s like he’s left you alone with the characters.
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8
Michelangelo Antonioni
Blow-Up
Blow-Up makes me think about the meaning of a person’s relationship to reality and the extent to which someone can deny reality in order to avoid having to criticize themselves. Antonioni achieves this in a remarkable way. The film makes us both question and understand how relative the world around us is and how many filters we all perceive it through, but he also confronts us with the utter power of reality and shows us that we’re just pawns in it.
The surrealism that the story is imbued with struck a sensitive chord inside me and made me investigate my own psychology. Antonioni makes interesting use of sound in the film, which becomes an essential element in the storytelling that cannot be ignored. For instance, there’s the use of guitar, which feels so important at first but then is just chucked away. It makes you question what we assign value to.
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9
Wim Wenders
Pina
There are two aspects of Pina that fascinate me: the fact that the protagonist of the film is not there, and that Wim Wenders makes it appear as if he’s withdrawn himself and left us alone with Pina Bausch’s friends as they tell her story.
I also found it so interesting how Wenders allowed me to discover and create a relationship with the city, the architecture, and the nature in the film. I knew Bausch’s work to some extent before seeing Pina, but the film opens a very special window onto her work. You can look at her life through many different perspectives, but I love this view of her. However, the film isn’t only about her, it’s also an exploration of Wenders’ way of creating cinema.
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10
Jean-Pierre Melville
Army of Shadows
Army of Shadows is a film I can always watch again. I love it because it makes me wonder where its sourness and sadness come from. Is it from the amazing way it’s shot? Is it Lino Ventura’s astounding performance? Or is it the sense of the uselessness of political struggle?
I love Melville’s films, but this one touches me on such a personal level. The melancholy of life in the film is very close to me, because you may try very hard to do many things, and yet the result may forever be so far away. My efforts as an artist drag me into politics without me wanting to go there, simply because I can’t be indifferent to my surroundings, not in a totalitarian system that turns you against your will into a political entity. You know that all your efforts might bring results sometime soon, but even if they were to bring forth change, it might not be the change that you’re seeking.