with the truth cinema under the pretext of the “Last Farewell” show; Camera in maternal privacy + video

Fars News Agency – Cinema Group: The female image in the documentary frame is important for a large number of audiences of this art and reminds of the mothers of the martyrs, mothers who can arouse many emotions by depicting even a moment of their lives. slow down

Camera in women’s privacy

One of the challenges of documentary cinema in narrating the real life of characters who are still alive is to enter the privacy of these characters and at the same time preserve the pristine and untouched atmosphere of their life flow. From this point of view, the documentary makers try to create a favorable environment to minimize the impact of the presence of the camera on the life narrative of these characters by creating trust in a space outside of what they portray in front of the camera. This challenge naturally increases when faced with female characters.

The documentary “The Last Goodbye” directed by Ehsan Sabouri is one of the products of Oj Organization, which is in the short documentaries section of the 17th “Truth Cinema” international festival. A documentary that portrays a different narrative of the solitude of a martyred mother and brings the audience with the 30-year longings of this mother.

For this reason, in this report, we have gone to the reinterpretation of the image of women in documentary cinema and the challenges of documentary filmmakers in narrating women’s stories and subjects.

The challenge of the image of “women” in cinema

The critical condition of Iranian cinema in the mid-50s is a historical fact. A cinema that, relying on the charms borrowed from the box office cinema of the East and the West, reached the stage of vegetative life in the heavy shadow of the wide release of foreign films and provided the platform for the boom of a fake phenomenon called “Filmfarsi”. With the victory of the Islamic Revolution, “Cinema” needed a major makeover, especially since the leader of the revolution had decreed its continued existence. The memory that Iranian cinema audiences had of the abuse of “women” in pre-revolutionary cinema made the representation of women in cinema one of the main challenges of the leaders of the revival of post-revolutionary cinema.

It was during these years that radical figures such as Mohsen Makhmalbaf, in the way of imposing what they considered to be “Islamic cinema”, put forward the proposal of “removing women” from cinema and even prescribed it in the form of a pamphlet for Iranian cinema! Regardless of the upheaval that Iranian cinema went through during that era, very soon female heroes were able to find their place in the showcase of Iranian cinema, away from sexist and pseudo-feminist views. Women who, while playing a role as a devoted mother or wife, also have a direct impact on society and their surroundings. In a general view, “women” have played an active and dynamic role behind and in front of the camera in Iranian cinema in the last four decades. Iranian documentary cinema has not been indifferent to the status and image of women, and many documentary makers have gone to the subjects of women’s world.

“Women” as the subject of documentary cinema

The first encounter that can be had with the issue of the image of women in documentary cinema is to find out about portrait documentaries that have formed their narrative based on the career of a woman. Until today, there have been no shortage of women in various fields, from art and politics to sports and other social activities, whose valuable portfolio has a high capacity to be represented in the form of a portrait documentary. One of the most significant recent examples in this regard are the documentaries that were made during the past few years focusing on the personality of Maryam Mirzakhani as one of the most reliable Iranian figures in the world of mathematics.

“Tehran Simin” focusing on the life of Fatemeh Motamedarya, “From among the dead” focusing on the life of Iran Droodi and “Toran Khanum” directed by Rokhshan Bani-Etemad and Mojtaba Mirtahmaseb on the life of Toran Mirhadi are considered to be the most prominent works in this field. But apart from famous and well-known characters, sometimes female heroes in different fields have attracted the attention of a documentary maker. Sometimes documentary filmmakers go to women with special experiences. The documentary “Pa Beh Top” centered on a village woman soccer player, “Noush Jan” with a story related to a group of women who bake cakes together and become entrepreneurs, “Mother of Fronts” with the narration of women’s presence in war and “Delband” With the story of a single mother’s life in the Alborz Mountains, we can consider other examples of this kind.

One of the most successful experiences in this field can be mentioned the two documentaries “Zero to Sekou” about the life of the Mansourian sisters and the documentary “There is no place for angels” about hockey girls. But one of the most prominent examples in this field is the documentaries made in Iranian cinema focusing on the lives of martyrs’ mothers. “Bano” can be considered one of the most prominent examples in recent years, which was directed by Mohammad Habibi Mansour.

Other works such as “Kol Fatima” by Mehdi Zamanpour Kiasri, “Perizad” by Mehdi Imani Shahidi, “Jamile” by Mohammad Baqer Shahin and “Lesk” by Mohammad Reza Watandoost can be considered as other examples of such works that the heroic presence of a woman in The center of their narrative has a special appeal.

“The last goodbye” and the solitude of a mother

The short documentary “The Last Goodbye” can be classified in line with such experiences. A documentary that the main success of Ehsan Sabouri as its director is the choice of the subject and the appropriate tone for its narration. The main hero of this documentary is a “woman” and more specifically, a “mother”. A mother who missed the opportunity to say goodbye to her son and his escort from the railway station 30 years ago and during her last trip to the front, and all these years in her solitude, she has been reminiscing about the same last goodbye.

What distinguishes Ehsan Sabouri’s documentary compared to other documentaries related to martyred mothers is the attempt to de-stereotype the image of these mothers and approach the different solitude of a mother. The main hero of this documentary talks about his 16-year-old martyred son as if he missed the opportunity to say goodbye to him just a few days ago and is looking forward to news and a new sign from him as if he is still unaware of his fate, but he himself is the same. He has taken over the body of his son for many years and has visited his grave in all these years. “The Last Goodbye” is a narrative of pure longings and sacrifices of an “Iranian mother”.

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