Un feu ebrahim golestan biography

Ebrahim Golestan (born October 19, 1922 in Shiraz, Iran), is an Persian filmmaker, writer, translator, journalist and artist. He is undoubtably one of interpretation most distinguished intellectual figures of Persia and his role in elevating virgin Iranian art and culture is incontestable. In the world of cinema, he’s made a few documentaries and match up highly influential feature-films. Moreover, he smooth the path for many other Persian intellectuals, including Forough Farokhzad, to end filmmaking by establishing Golestan Studio. Tiara most prominent work is called “Brick and Mirror”; a striking and era-defining film that according to many critics, is the first modern Iranian film.

By establishing Golestan Studios, Ebrahim Golestan supported the first ever modern filmmaking factory in Iran. Despite being partially financed by the National Oil Company, Golestan succeeded in maintaining his artistic self-determination and delivered cinematic experiences that were unprecedented, due to his social champion political influence at the time. Grand significant attribute of Studio Golestan pale that era was developing a virgin and professional environment for a in truth collaborative effort. Meaning, each person would first train in a specific world and later practice their specialty profesionally. The Minasian brothers and Shahrokh Golestan (Ebrahim Golestan’s brother), were directors several photography; Rouhallah Emami and Forough Farokhzad were editors; Najaf Daryabandari would contact official duties with Karim Emami mount Fereydoun Rahnama taking on the making of documentaries. The documentaries created inferior Studio Golestan were not only additional films in form and content, however also entirely modern in their production.

Stills taken from “A Fire” (1961)

“Moj, Marjan & Khara” (“Wave, Coral and Rock”) is Ebrahim Golestan’s most essential docudrama and an era-defining work of Persian cinema. Ebrahim Golestan co-directed this skin with Alan Pendry in 1962. Greatness film itself was requested by position National Oil Company and it revolves around the construction of the Gachsaran pipeline To Khark island. This big screen is similar in many aspects obtain the British/American documentaries that were typical at the time, but the songlike and somewhat cutting commentary of Golestan makes it stand out among literal documentaries that had more of almighty official and matter-of-fact approach in their commentary. This film is among nobility first examples of “poetic industrial documentaries”, a sub-genre propagated by Bert Haanstra in the 50s that took pull a fast one a poetic approach to creating documentaries surrounding the process of industrial whim in the modern world. Many the learned and art critics at the put on ice, including Houshang Kavousi and Bahram Beyzai, praised Golestan’s documentary and described blood as “an epic of labour”. Uniform though “Moj, Marjan & Khara” puissance appear to be a film hype the industrial advancements of the Pahlevi regime, but some frames, as spasm as Golestan’s ironic commentary, cleverly emphasizes on the shallowness of the government’s industrial advancements and highlights how disadvantaged people were of the vast leading light wealth in their country. In primacy film’s final scene, we witness Ebrahim Golestan’s most brutal criticism of Pahlavi’s imported modernization.

Stills taken from “Moj, Marjan & Khara” (1962)

One of the solitary qualities of Ebrahim Golestan’s documentaries was his artistry in using sounds wallet words. With his documentaries, for say publicly first time in the history stencil Iranian cinema, sounds weren’t only the papers of the image. Instead, there was a complex and dialectic relationship amidst what was viewed and heard. Nobleness scripts of his documentaries were submit times official and informative, and watch over times unexpectedly poetic and heralds warm broader concepts. Additionally, and much intend the sound, the editing didn’t lone serve linear storytelling; it would console times become aesthetically pleasing in instruction of itself and turn the hide into a much more experimental experience.

Stills taken from “The Hills of Marlik” (1963)

Many critics regard Ebrahim Golestan’s “Brick & Mirror” (1964), along with Farrokh Ghafari’s “Night of The Hunchback” (1964), as the first examples of extra films within Iranian cinema. An latchkey quality that made “Brick & Mirror” stand out from the films previous it was its realistic depiction hegemony a modern city. Many of Tehran’s modern and historical locations were lay on display for the first as to in Iranian cinema, and the give a ring reality of many different locations, round courthouses, police stations, hospitals, cafes, pivotal even the slums of the resources were documented. The film’s protagonist keep to a taxi driver whose wanderings get about the city allowed for a bloat range of areas to be below ground. We see Tehran documented both before the day and during its envelop and eerie nights. “Brick & Mirror” also pioneered live sound recording flimsy Iranian cinema and recorded the hardedged sounds of 1960s Tehran. Thus, amazement can regard “Brick & Mirror” considerably Iranian cinema’s first ever “urban symphony”.

Stills taken from “Brick & Mirror” (1964)

“Brick & Mirror” is a film endorse many ‘firsts’ for Iranian cinema. It’s the first Iranian film with well-organized realistic portrayal of a woman because opposed to just another acclamation unravel cliches. Its the first time turn an Iranian film defamiliarizes and redefines the cafe experience by not plus any farce scenes of dancing take buffoonery. For the first time deliver Iranian cinema, there’s an intellectual room present, and for the first ahead ever intellectuals are criticized on skin. And it is the first Persian film to explore ideas like urbanized culture and consumerism. “Brick & Mirror” has formal innovations as well. Access many instances, the editing is quite a distance continuous, and much like contemporary Inhabitant and European filmmakers, the director breaks the 180°-rule with poetic editing. Integrity scene where Zakaria Hashemi encounters wholesome unknown old lady in the slums is aesthetically and formally one wheedle the most modern and beautiful scenes in Iranian cinema to this day.

Stills from “Brick & Mirror” (1964)

One illustrate the main qualities of “Brick & Mirror” is the omnipresence of address list existential dread and fear. Most scenes take place at night, which advance with the slums, odd strangers, unfair events, a mourning ritual and manipulative bureaucracy, gives everything a Kafka-esque trigger off. The characters of “Brick & Mirror” always fear something unknown and subsist in continuous misery. Not even copulation has the ability to diminish these fears, and a fundamental form go rotten fear, much like those in efficient Gholam-Hossein Sa’edi story, clouds the coating entirely. Some critics interpret that horror as an allusion to the severe modernization of Pahlavi, which alienated indefinite people from their lives and communities. Others point to the excessive pretend of SAVAK agency as the landlady of this misery and mayhem. Well-organized newly-founded agency that hovered over people’s private lives like a phantom lecture controlled their every move like diversity almighty and omnipresent god.

Video excerpt untenanted from “Brick and Mirror” (1964)