BUDDHA COLLAPSED OUT OF SHAME (IRAN/2007/HANA MAKHMALBAF)

Directed by Hana Makhmalbaf, the 19-year-old daughter of auteur Mohsen Makhmalbaf, Buddha Collapsed Out Of Shame tells the story of Bahtai, a young girl whose dream is simply to go to school. Spurred on by the taunts of her neighbour, she sets out to get herself a notepad and pencil to equip herself for an impromptu trip to the local school. Though unsuccessful in procuring the correct items, she steals her mum’s lipstick to write with and heads out to the school. En route, she is bullied by a group of boys who are pretending to be the Taliban, an experience which distresses her greatly. When she finally gets there, she finds that her dream could never be as good as she had imagined in the current circumstances, and a further encounter with the Taliban boys appears to push her to her limits.

The title makes reference to the Taliban’s explosion of the Buddha statues in Bamyan, and we see first-hand footage of the shocking incident before the first credit is up. Though never sensationalist or sentimental, the film is deeply upsetting for its portrayal of oppression under Taliban rule, and the adults’ lack of presence serves to highlight the issues. Bahtai is portrayed consistently as a child – Makhmalbaf never pretends that she suddenly has the capacity to understand the socio-political gravity of her journey – and it is this that gives the film its strength, particularly as nobody else in the film treats her with appropriate consideration. An important film.

NO ONE KNOWS ABOUT PERSIAN CATS (IRAN/2009/BAHMAN GHOBADI)

Recently released from prison for public performances, musicians Negar and Ashkan prepare to beg, steal or borrow to play a gig in London they have been offered. The pair’s biggest obstacle is the stringent law about leaving the country, and when the couple realises they don’t have the documents they need, they turn to record producer Hamed, who simultaneously imbues them with confidence as well as dragging them into more trouble. Through integration with the rest of the Iranian underground music scene, running the gamut from indie to rap and making many stops between, Negar and Ashkan find extra band members with whom they decide to perform a benefit gig so that they can get passports and head to London. With the risk of being caught by the police literally hanging over their heads, the band is under intense pressure, and it seems like only a miracle can see them to their goal.

Director Bahman Ghobadi has previously found an audience in the West with features about Kurdish people constantly alienated from their environment, and the same themes run through No One Knows About Persian Cats, although the subject matter is vastly different. The protagonists, in real life a duo called Take It Easy Hospital, are endearing but are in no way the main attraction of the film. Ghobadi takes the opportunity to promote another face of Iran, one which refuses to deny outside influence and discovers new modes of creative expression. An effortlessly cool, politically charged piece of work.

LE VENT DES AMOUREUX (IRAN/1978/ALBERT LAMORISSE)

French filmmaker Albert Lamorisse, responsible for revered children’s film Le Ballon Rouge, was sponsored by the Iranian Ministry of Culture and Art to produce this poetic documentary, but died when the helicopter he was filming from crashed. In the eight years following his death, his widow completed the project, using Lamorisse’s production notes as a guide, and Le Vent des Amoureux was posthumously nominated for an Oscar. The film is predominantly composed of images shot from a helicopter, and the camerawork is intended to imitate the movement of the wind. Dust clouds and herds of sheep appear to dance in rhythm to frenetic drums. As the narration begins, we are regaled by stories from the four winds said to course through Iran – the warm wind, the crimson wind, the evil wind and the lovers’ wind. The camera takes us through the clouds, through buildings, over cities and hamlets alike, indiscriminately washing clouds of sand along the way.

There are no overtly political tones, although the winds are favourable towards the nomads as they “believe that the earth belongs to no-one”, which could be read as suggesting that Iran be liberated from dynastic rule. Incidentally, Lamorisse was asked to reshoot the film, placing more emphasis on the modernisation of the country. The film was never publicly shown in Iran. Quietly stunning and magnetically simple, Le Vent des Amoureux is an exceptional final creation from an underrated master of cinema, and one wonders what Lamorisse may have accomplished had he lived longer.

AT FIVE IN THE AFTERNOON (IRAN/2003/SAMIRA MAKHMALBAF)

Samira Makhmalbaf’s At Five In The Afternoon, winner of the Jury Prize at Cannes Film Festival, tells the story of Noqreh (Agheleh Rezaie), a tenacious young Afghan woman desperate to gain a proper education. As we follow her story, we also see the struggles of the women she meets and the consideration she affords them.

The film strives for a certain realism, but cannot help taking a political agenda with it. At the girls’ school, when a survey is taken to see which job everyone aspires to, almost everyone seems keen on being either an engineer or a doctor, but when a select few stand up for ‘president of Afghanistan’, Noqreh included, they are laughed back down. Later on, the girls strike up a debate independently which raises questions about Afghan identity and what it is to be a woman. The scene is surprisingly moving, its key disputants filled with precocious conviction.

Makhmalbaf does a great job of subtly uprooting the restraints on women, as in the scene where two girls, thrown from a carriage for lifting their veils, run freely into the distance. Despite the heavy-handed themes of the film, there are moments of relief, particularly in the recurring motif of decorative blue umbrellas. As in Abderrahmane Sissako’s Bamako, a similarly politically-minded film, it is sometimes hard to understand the intended effect of the lighter scenes, but it is impossible not to be charmed by Noqreh’s confident attempts to communicate with a NATO soldier she wrongly believes is American.