September 2006

Offside (Iran, dir­ector Jafar Panahi): Filmed during an actual qual­i­fying match for the 2006 World Cup, Offside works bril­liantly as both a comedy and a tragedy. The film fol­lows the for­tunes of a group of young women who are caught trying to sneak into a foot­ball match at Tehran’s Azadi Stadium. The country’s Islamic reli­gious leaders have decreed that women may not sit with men at sporting events, lest they be exposed to cursing and other mor­ally ques­tion­able beha­viour. This hasn’t stopped the country’s young female fans, who con­tinue to sneak in using various tricks. But Panahi focuses on a small group who have been caught and are being detained agon­iz­ingly close to the action. They beg the bored sol­diers guarding them to let them go or at least to let them watch the match. The sol­diers tell them they shouldn’t have tried to get in, that they could have watched the game at home on TV. They banter back and forth in almost real-time as the game con­tinues, just off-camera.

There is one very funny sequence where a young sol­dier accom­panies one of the girls to the restroom. Since there are no female restrooms at sta­diums, he has to clear the room of any men before he can allow her to go in. Plus, he makes her cover her face so no one can see she’s a woman. This is accom­plished using a poster of Iranian soccer star Ali Karimi as a mask, with eye holes punched out.

You get a real sense that even the sol­diers are baffled by the pro­hib­i­tion, and are only car­rying out their orders so as to hasten the end of their com­pulsory mil­itary ser­vice. One sol­dier com­plains that he was sup­posed to be on leave so he could take care of his family’s cattle in the coun­tryside. Little by little, the girls and the sol­diers talk to each other, and there are numerous small acts of kind­ness on both sides to show that these are basic­ally good people living in ter­rible cir­cum­stances. However, the sol­diers’ con­stant reminder that “the chief” is on his way lends a sense of menace, since we don’t know what sort of pun­ish­ment the women will face.

Unlike most Iranian films, which are known for their strong visuals, Offside is filmed in a realist style with no arti­fice. In fact, the film was made during the actual qual­i­fying match against Bahrain that took place on June 5, 2005. The “plot” in many ways was determ­ined by the result on the pitch. If Iran won the match, they would qualify. If they lost, they would not. Since the World Cup has come and gone, I don’t think it is a spoiler to say that Iran won the match. The scenes of cel­eb­ra­tion at the end of the film were real and spon­tan­eous, which gave the film a real authen­ti­city. Seeing how much this meant to the people of Iran was deeply touching.

As well, one of the young women makes ref­er­ence at the end of the film to seven fans who died during the Iran-Japan match on March 25, just a few weeks before. They were trampled to death after police began to spray the crowd with water to move them in a cer­tain dir­ec­tion. Knowing that this was a real-life tragedy added another level of poignancy to the celebrations.

I don’t want to go off on a long polit­ical tan­gent, but this film gave me real hope that there are those in Iran who are hoping for change and working at it. Iran is a nation of young people, and it is only a matter of time before they take the place of their elders in the polit­ical sphere. Films like this one show the proud spirit of the Iranian people in spite of their present dif­fi­culties, and it’s my sin­cere hope that there is a brighter future for them.

Interview with dir­ector Jafar Panahi

Interview with dir­ector Jafar Panahi at Reverse Shot

Good review from Sight and Sound magazine

(9/10)

Tagged as: football, iran, soccer, sports, TIFF

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