The Circle: Oppression Is an Endless Loop | Dissident Cinema

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1:39Josh Larsen:Hopping on grandappliance.com.

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2:29Josh Larsen:What kind of a show are you guys putting on here today? You're not interested in art? No. Now look, we're going to do this thing. We're going to have a conversation. Hey, FilmSpotters, Adam and Josh here. The sixth and final film in our Dissident Cinema Marathon is Jafar Panahi's Chronicle of Contemporary Iran circa the late 90s, The Circle.

2:51Adam Kempenaar:The Dissident Cinema Marathon is dedicated to films that depict or openly confront fascism of various kinds. We have discussed six films in all, or we will have once we get through this conversation about The Circle. You can find the full lineup at filmspotting.net slash marathons. You can also find there our entire history of marathons. We have done over 50 of these over the years. What are these? Well, marathon is the word we use to describe these series where we try to eliminate our cinematic blind spots. They are often devoted to directors or actors or genres, sometimes even regions of world cinema.

3:32Adam Kempenaar:I had to look up, Josh, where this film placed exactly in Panahi's filmography. He has been a favorite of mine, certainly over the years of doing this show, as I've gotten to discover his work. It's his third feature after The White Balloon in 1995. And then my beloved The Mirror, a movie that became beloved for me after watching it as part of a marathon here on Film Spotting. That came out in 1997. This movie, closing out our marathon, is a little bit of an outlier due to the time of its release. I did bring up whether or not it belonged in this marathon or we should just conclude after five movies because we had a run of, what?

4:14Adam Kempenaar:1940 to basically 1969. It was kind of compact, about three decades, and most of what we were covering was really dealing with World War II. It seemed really nice and tidy, and then all of a sudden we were jumping ahead to the year 2000. And also in terms of subject matter, not so much dealing with fascism per se, but definitely an oppressive state as this film is confronting Iran's treatment of women. In terms of quality, because if I remember correctly, we have been fans of every film, both of us, every film in this marathon. Oh, yeah. Was the circle an outlier or is it an appropriate conclusion to the marathon?

4:58Josh Larsen:I think it's appropriate on many terms, including its quality. I think it holds up alongside some of these classics we've been visiting. And I also think we have been tossing around fascism a lot. It's probably been the go-to phrase for this dissident cinema marathon. But honestly, in thinking about it in larger terms, we were discussing oppressive regimes, authoritarianism, any system of that sort that is really limiting human freedom in systematic ways. And that's absolutely what we see here. And I do think, you know, also there's some unfortunate relevance in the fact that we have this pretty blatantly illegal war launched against Iran on the part of the United States right now.

5:53Josh Larsen:And any chance to get to know an area that is being besieged in this way, I think is the movies just offer you a really helpful way to get your mind around that beyond news reports and other sources of information. You know, I was grateful to our Contemporary Iranian Cinema Marathon when we first did it for helping to educate and enlighten about that part of the world. And, you know, those questions are anew with the conflict going on right now. And so I do think it was nice to see, again, set decades ago now, but still, to learn about movements and people's experiences of the regimes in Iran, even now.

6:40Josh Larsen:So, yeah, I think I'm glad we're here. Glad is a strange word. This hasn't been the cheeriest of marathons, but I do think it's fitting. Yeah, curious to hear what you think along those lines and absolutely want to dig into that quality question you asked.

6:55Adam Kempenaar:I had a similar reaction as you. I'm certainly glad that we watched it. It's befitting in terms of its subject matter and befitting in terms of quality. Trust Panahi to find the perfect. I'm going to dig in. Trust Panahi to find the perfect formal conceit to convey this portrait of systemic oppression, right? This is what he has become so known for over the years. I have not seen The White Balloon, but I wondered if even from the very beginning, he was trying cinematic techniques like this. And from what I could understand, I didn't want to learn too much about it. It seems like that movie is relatively straightforward.

7:41Adam Kempenaar:It did win the camera door for best first feature at the Cannes Film Festival in 95. The Guardian listed it as one of the 50 best family films ever. BFI said that it's one of 50 films you should see by the age of 14. So this is a movie we should probably reckon with at some point. We should see The White Balloon. But in terms of its narrative journey and how the craft and content meet, pretty traditional. The mirror next is where he starts playing the disruptor in terms of technique. And there's the Blue Heron-esque rupturing of reality. Since then, he has almost always, I'll say almost always because I didn't go back and look at every single film and every film that I know.

8:27Adam Kempenaar:He's almost always had a concept and an elegant one. And you catch on, or at least I thought I was catching on without knowing where this movie was going to go. I thought I might be catching on to the concept here. when we get this incredible prelude, the opening of this film, this opening scene, which is a relatively brief scene in terms of meeting this character, the grandmother character that the camera is focusing on. She is outside the door, this whatever you want to call it, the food door or the peephole is what it looks like in a jail cell. You'll understand if you've seen the movie why I'm saying that.

9:09Adam Kempenaar:But this is a hospital. And she's outside the door basically of a maternity room. Her daughter is giving birth. And at the beginning of this film, she's awaiting the good news that her daughter has given birth to a son. This is especially important to this family, it turns out, because the daughter's husband's family was told it would be a boy. The ultrasound said it would be a boy. They want a boy. They're expecting a boy. And now she's just been told, congratulations, it's a girl.

10:01Adam Kempenaar:We don't even see the grandmother for a long time. We're just looking at the back of her head. But we can still understand just from the way the camera is positioned behind her, her lack of movement, her lack of excitement, that something is off. And then we understand from her dialogue where she essentially is saying some version of check again. That can't be, right? She's like, no, she doesn't believe it. And she doesn't, more importantly, she doesn't want to believe it. But as the camera then, and the camera, if I'm remembering correctly, I didn't go back just to be 100 % sure, but I think that entire opening is one long take, a continuous take where we follow her.

10:43Adam Kempenaar:I don't know if there are any cuts. We follow her past a couple of other characters, including another daughter. and then when she ends up out on the street the baton if you will sort of gets passed to another character and you you it's in real time and the fact that it's in real time and the fact that then the grandmother disappears you say oh okay i wonder if then this is what's going to happen in this film is that we're going to we're going to be passed along different women and their stories And that indeed is the circle. That's just part of the circle metaphor of the title. That is indeed what happens, isn't it?

11:22Adam Kempenaar:And it is the perfect metaphor. And I did not have a sense of just how perfect it would be and how devastating it would be until Panahi hits us with a stomach punch at the end.

11:38Josh Larsen:yeah the ending i mean we should discuss in detail and give a little spoiler before we do that for folks who are encouraged to watch this for the first time because i didn't know that's what was going to happen but i do think it is the it is the triumph of the film is bringing us around to that point you're right baton that's how i was thinking about this too we essentially have a relay race here because it's not just that first handoff we go through i think three possibly four other women or groups of women we meet that the movie introduces us to. We run along with them for a short while. Some sort of resolution kind of comes in some segments, but not always and not fully.

12:21Josh Larsen:You know, the women's lives move ahead, certainly, but really, do they get anywhere? I think we see that in most cases not. And, you know, there's something also, So there's a couple of ways this is so effective. And the one is, we've talked about looking at these movies and their depictions of oppressive societies. And I think a lot of the movies we considered have a fairly broad canvas, but still there are main characters in a lot of cases, or two or three main characters. And so we can get the sense of, well, this time and this oppression was experienced by this person, maybe this neighborhood.

13:00Josh Larsen:But by doing this, by expanding the canvas so wide in what is probably the shortest film of the marathon, but certainly among them, in expanding things this wide, we really do get a sense of the societal reality. That this isn't just a woman or two women in unfortunate situations. That this is a top-down issue. So it does that. And it also does, Adam, this is something, if you had told me the structure, I could have said, yeah, that's probably why he chose it. Right. But it is only experiencing the structure that I think we realize, going back to another quality you talked about, devastating. I think there's a helplessness to not having these women's stories resolved or improved in most cases and in any way.

13:56Josh Larsen:And us as viewers moving on. You just feel so helpless, not obviously as a viewer that you could do something for them, but I think there's a form of empathy going on. There's a contract between viewer and subject in a movie where we sort of feel like we're helping by watching. Something about our viewing, our attending, our witnessing. not practically, but just in our movie going experience, we feel like we're there with them. And when that baton gets passed from one of them still in a state of distress and we pick up with someone else and we know we're, we're likely not going to get back to the other person.

14:40Josh Larsen:There is an extra helplessness that I think feeds into that devastation you're describing that really makes this a wrenching, a wrenching experience. And let me go back just quickly to that because you were laying it out in such detail, that opening sequence. There's one thing I want to point out about the first baton pass as well, because it speaks to your point about Panahi's really incisive use of his locations and putting us in the moment, if not always precisely long single takes, certainly longer takes that have that feeling. So we follow that grandmother they're out onto the street. And this is where we pick up three new women, Arazu, Nargesse, and then another woman who I don't think is named.

15:24Josh Larsen:And this is all on the block that the hospital is on. Basically, they separate. We were introduced to the three women and they separate. Nargesse, the youngest, stays in the middle where the camera met them. And then one of them goes to one far end of the block and the other goes to the other far end of the block. And the camera looks back and forth. And what we're witnessing is that the woman, I think it's Arizo who goes to the one end to chase down a guy who just said something rude to them, right? The other friend goes to the end of the block. I think she's going to a newspaper stand and the camera sees that she's beginning to have a confrontation with police.

16:05Josh Larsen:And by going back and forth, by looking back and forth, we realize that in the course of a single block, this is what these three women are experiencing. In the middle, Nargesse is in this just frightened state of not knowing where to move. And again, we'll probably spend more time on this, but Panahi's use of the street settings, it just shows you that all of this can take place within the course of, I don't know,

16:33Adam Kempenaar:hundred feet or whatever it is yeah a hundred feet and a normal day a fairly normal experience and that that is what we get over the course of this movie helplessness is the right word because the only problem with us using the the terminology baton or or talking about it like it's a race is if it was really a race and they were going around the oval is there's a finish line but there's no finish line here. That's, that's the entire point is that this just continues and continues. And there is no resolution. There's certainly no neat resolution to any of this. And sometimes we get that brought to life with the camera.

17:22Adam Kempenaar:Did you notice how often in spaces, whether it's at, for example, the, the bus station, we see these women often going around in circles. There are, there are parts of these locations where it feels like they are, they are walking in a loop or they're, they're retracing their steps. That that's part of this too, but often it's just a matter of their confinement. And that's, that's what, that's what he shows is that no matter where they are, no matter if they're in open spaces, they are somehow still trapped. They are trapped by this system. They are trapped by this, this condition, the condition of this state that demands that men get to make all the decisions for them.

18:20Adam Kempenaar:Think about how many times you hear people say, I mean, Perry is one of the, or Pari is one of the characters who she's, she's four months pregnant. She has no identification. She doesn't have a father who can take responsibility for her. She doesn't have a husband. And she just says at one point to the one person she thinks can help her. I don't know what to do. I don't know where to go. And that's true. She, she is completely helpless. The woman we see at the very end, Josh, who is on a bus, and even the way that bus is shot, she's sitting there, and how is it portrayed? There's like four other men, and they're all angled around her so that there's just no escape.

19:06Adam Kempenaar:There's no escape. And the bus, the ticket person, the taxi driver, they have to beg people to do them favors. They have to beg men to do them favors simply to do basic things like, I want to buy a bus ticket. That's those conditions that they're living under.

19:27Josh Larsen:To go back to the woman on that prison bus at the very end and men making the decisions and making the rules even in the moment. Can't smoke. Well, talk about the payoff to the repeated motif from the very beginning about these women failing to light a cigarette, wanting to have a cigarette. And how many sequences, Adam, do they start to light one for some reason or ask for one and it's failed? Yeah. No matches, whatever. I don't think anyone gets to have a cigarette in the movie until this sequence where this woman who has been picked up, we understand she was on the street and a man picked her up, that she's a sex worker.

20:09Josh Larsen:And the man is let go. She gets arrested. She's on this prison bus with, as you said, a couple other men. And she tries to light a cigarette and is told, no smoking on here. What happens? A little bit later, the one or two of the other men on the bus, they light their cigarette. And so suddenly they're smoking and we cut back to this woman and she looked, and I forget exactly how it happens, but, but basically the point is she lights her own again. She tries again and figures, well, if they're doing it now, I can do it. And she's allowed to, but it's the first cigarette in the film that's actually lit is not until the men have done it first for themselves, which just speaks to your point about, you know, So decisions being completely out of your control, even something as personal as that.

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23:47Adam Kempenaar:Do we go ahead and talk about the end, acknowledging that we have to say that this is heavy spoilers or are there other things you want to talk about?

23:57Josh Larsen:I do want to build on your note about imprisonment and the visual nature of this, because I noticed fairly early on that there is so much jail imagery or just bars on the screen. And you were already touching on one when you talked about, um, Nargeste circling at the bus station and she does, it's that lower level. So they're floor to ceiling windows, but each pane of window is separated by a vertical black bar. And as she's circling, which you described the movement makes those there, they almost come quicker than they would if she was just walking slowly. And they definitely, to me had the feeling of, of jail bars.

24:40Josh Larsen:you can see there's another just shot again panaki using the street so well of narges crouching against a wall and the wall is next to a gated door and of course there are bars on that but just maybe they waited for the light to be right but the bars are also casting a shadow onto the ground in front of her reminding her as we learn that her and the other two women she's with they snuck out of prison that morning. And so it's still haunting her, even though she's escaped. And then just one more, I really liked, uh, Paris goes to talk to a friend who works at a movie theater in the ticket booth and she's allowed inside, but he keeps the camera outside the ticket booth, frames their faces in the window where you pay for your tickets, which of course has bars as well so that that idea of um imprisonment is also very much built into