June 17, 2008
Silverdocs: Head Wind
Leave it to me to get teary-eyed from a film about Iranians installing illegal Satellite TV dishes. But near the end of this film, which takes an often humorous approach to the proliferation of foreign TV programs and internet access in Iran despite the government’s tireless efforts to prevent it, two of the film’s subjects offer plaintive cries about the way the government’s restrictions are stifling their thoughts, their dreams, their desires. One is a former journalist whose paper was shut down by the government, who now operates a roadside tea stand where he offers free newspapers to his clientele, and the other is an underground rock musician who dreams of playing his music “above ground”, where he can be heard and not have to hide in a hole. The musician says he will continue playing underground, because such agitation, even if futile, is better than apathy. He will continue to play in opposition to the govenment’s plan to separate the people from their desires. (Sniff, sniff.) And the journalist searches the Internet every day for news from around the world, even though most sites he visits are blocked by the government days after he finds them. But he persists, saying that it helps him to still feel like a journalist, and not just a former one.
And yet, the film is not so simplistic as to claim that access to media will cure everything. We see families (who have illegal Satellite dishes installed) eating dinner around a TV set, staring trance-like at images of Christina Ricci and Hugh Jackman and not interacting with one another. And the very image of the technology itself—the crude dishes, the old TV sets, the antennae boosters—is ugly, marring the gorgeous Iranian mountainside.
But there are moments of transcendence. A man riding a donkey down a hill sings at the top of his lungs, as the film cuts to a television set showing a music video for the song he’s singing, offering us the source of the man’s inspiration, his dreams.
Filed by cynthia rockwell at 4:52 pm under Just Movies,Silverdocs
2 Comments
[…] Wild Sound » Silverdocs: Head Wind And yet there are moments of transcendence. A man riding a donkey down a hill sings at the top of his lungs, as the film cuts to a television set showing a music video for the song he’s singing, offering us the source of the man’s inspiration, his dre (tags: friends movies) […]
I just saw the film and I totally concur.
I was also moved by the bravery of the people who allowed themselves to be filmed. OK, maybe the government isn’t going to tramp up into the mountains to find the specific sheep-herding nomads who power up their TV with a portable generator, and who comment on their happiness at knowing what the rest of the world is like.
But the illegal satellite dish installers? The ones who make the dishes after hours in a pots-and-pans factory? The dwarf who rents copies of smuggled American movies? Surely someone is going to ID him, he’s WELL recognizable…
I have to believe that, like the rock musician, they feel that the record of their efforts, even if futile, has to be made known.