Jafar Panahi and Igi.

Director Jafar Panahi, in socially conscious films like The Circle and The Mirror, is one of the most prominent names in Iranian neorealist cinema. But he turns meta, with mixed results, in This is Not a Film. That he made the film at all is a political statement in itself. Panahi was arrested at a Tehran cemetery at the funeral for one of the protesters killed in the aftermath of the 2009 Iranian elections that spawned the Green Movement. As This is Not a Film was made, Panahi was under house arrest awaiting the appeal of a six-year prison sentence and 20-year ban on making films. This documentary was defiantly cobbled together from footage made on Panahi’s iphone and a digital video camera operated by documentary filmmaker Mojtaba Mirtahmasb. The footage was smuggled out of Iran to Cannes on a flash drive hidden in birthday cake. The story arc of that footage is a testament to the creative spirit and political struggle, but the resulting movie doesn’t quite live up to its backstory.

Much of This is Not a Film’s short running time observes the director in his Tehran apartment on New Year’s Eve, having breakfast, taking phone calls while his daughter’s gigantic pet iguana wanders the apartment, and planning a film he cannot legally make.

Panahi is eager to express himself despite the political and practical restrictions on his output. About a third of This is Not a Film consists of the director working out an unproduced screenplay, blocking out scenes for his cameraman friend. But Panahi’s comfortable high-rise apartment, prison that it is, doesn’t exactly convey neorealist ideals.

The director himself provides another clue as to why This is Not a Film doesn’t quite work as a film. He plays DVDs from his previous films to point out scenes in which amateur actors improvise in ways that the director could not have foreseen. He can write the screenplay and hire the cast, but when an amateur actor appears to really hyperventilate on screen, that’s the kind of surprise that makes a film come to life. Such accidents are part of the thrill filmmaking, or any creative endeavor, but it’s a thrill that the director is deprived of in this setting. His actors are free to break out of directorial restrictions, but the director himself cannot break out of these restrictions imposed by the state. So blame the state for the failed film.

The film is least effective when he’s trying to make (or not make) that film. Observations of his life are more interesting, particularly his daughter’s huge pet iguana. Igi is probably the closest to an amateur actor he has to work with. The creature may be restricted by the confines of an unnatural habitat, but is free to roam and climb the artists’ bookshelves in a manner that no screenwriter would devise. Werner Herzog was obviously onto something when he peppered his Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call – New Orleans with the lizards who stole that movie from hammy Nicolas Cage. Igi is a fascinating creature and metaphor.

Near the end of the film, Panahi follows a young student who picks up the trash in his building. This provides a last-ditch attempt to find serendipity. But as the New Year approaches, what he finds instead resembles chaos. As an act of civil disobedience and expression in the face of state oppression, This is Not a Film is to be applauded. But its title is less ironic than it would like to be.

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This is Not a Film
Directed by Jafar Panahi and Mojtaba Mirtahmasb.
With Jafar Panahi and Mojtaba Mirtahmasb.
Running time: 75 minutes
Not rated.
Opens today at E Street.