The film’s openingsceneis a decidedlylo-fiexception:
a grainy,verticallyorientedmobile-phonerecordingby a
teenagegirl in a cave that culminatesin her apparentsui-
cide by hanging.Immediatelyafter, we cut to Panahiand
actressBehnazJafari,who have respondedto receiving
this footage(sent to the former,addressedto the latter)
by drivingto the girl’s statedlocationin the remotevillage
of Saran,locatednear the director’sbirthplacein Iran’s
far-north-westernprovinceof East Azerbaijan.Far from
easingthe shockof the precedingsequenceby settlingus
into a clearlyfictionalmode,this scene only blurs that line
further:as they discussthe video in the car and express
their uncertaintyas to its veracity,it’s not fully clear that
they’reacting,or whetherhe’s in on the ruse and she isn’t
(a little while later, Jafari distrustfullyremindsPanahithat
‘not long ago [...] you said you were preparinga screenplay
about suicide,with a role for me’). When the girl, Marziyeh
(MarziyehRezaei),turns up later in the film unharmed,
viewersare likely to experienceit as a genuinerelief.
Is Panahimerelytoyingwith his audiencehere, or
exploringsomethingmore profound?There’sa similar
sceneearly inTaxiin which,after an argumentbetween
two passengers,a third recognisesPanahiin the driver’s
seat and gleefullydenounceseverythingshownso far as
a set-up– only for their conversationto be interruptedby
franticrappingon the door and a womanclimbinginto the
taxi clutchinga badly injuredman and beggingto be driven
to a hospital.The fourthwall has been brokenand, just as
quickly,rebuilt.Of course,just like Panahi’spassenger,we
suspectthat this is all too perfect,all too obviouslystaged;
but a part of us also recognisesthat the directoris, at the
time of filming,literallydrivinga taxi aroundthe streetsof
Tehran,and that the prospectof real life interveningat any
momentis, therefore,withinthe realm of possibility.
Such disorienting,postmoderntacticsare a common
featurein Panahi’sfilmography.Perhapsthe most extreme
instanceof this approachoccursinThe Mirror(1997),in
which,aroundforty minutesinto a narrativeabout a lost
child, the little girl playingthe protagonist,Mina (Mina
MohammadKhani),abruptlydecidesthat she doesn’t
want to be in the film anymoreand walks home,with
Panahitrackingher journeyfrom a distanceon a hand-
held camera.We are left to wonderwhetherthis second
half of the film is a documentarythat has been impro-
vised on the spot, or whether what we’re seeing was
scriptedall along.^3
WhileThe Mirroris one of Panahi’sleast overtlypolitical
films, its liberationfrom filmic conventionstandsin direct
oppositionto the constraintsthat the Iraniangovernment
has soughtto imposeon his life. In that sense,3 Faces’
Marziyehservesas a mirrorfor Panahihimself:despite
her acceptanceinto a prestigiousactingconservatoryin
Tehran,her future in the film industryhas been sabotaged
by her conservativefamily,who – along with the rest of
her community– considerher ambitionsfrivolousand im-
proper.As with Panahi’sown post-filmmaking-banexperi-
ments, her video is a desperate attempt to communicate
somethingthroughthe limitedtools availableto her, and
what she makesis a similarlyeffectivework of fiction that
blurs the distinctionbetweentruth and artifice.
UnlikeMarziyeh,Jafari is (as she is in real life) a popular,
establishedTV and film actresswhosecareeris under no
threat,even thoughwe learn at the beginningof the film
throughan angry phonecall from anotherdirector^4 that
she has abandoneda shoot withoutwarningto accom-
pany Panahion his search;evidently,the productiondep-
ends more on her than she does on it. Even in the rustic,
Azeri-speakingvillageof Saran– whereher sunglasses
and brightlydyed red hair emergingfrom under her hijab
immediatelymark her as an outsider– she is, on her first
arrival,immediatelyrecognisedand mobbedlike a celeb-
rity. Nonetheless,it soon becomesapparentthat the locals’
interestin Jafari is motivatedless by reverencethan by
materialconcerns:they expresshope that her and Panahi’s
visit can somehowbe leveragedto repair the village’sailing
infrastructure,and immediatelydispersein disgust when
she asks for informationabout Marziyeh.
Marziyeh,we learn, is hidingout in the houseof a fellow
villagepariah,elderlypre-revolutionmoviestar Shahrzad,
and it’s at this point that the meaningof3 Faces’ title be-
comesclear. Each of these actressesrepresentsa differ-
ent generation,a differentperiodof Iraniancinema:its
past, presentand future.Yet the film’s title also containsa
tellingparadox:the third face, Shahrzad’s,is never seen;
instead,we catch her as a silhouette,or a disembodied
voice througha car’s CD player,or a figure seen from
adistance.Like the formativeIraniancinemathat she
represents,she is definedby her absence.
Shahrzad,born KobraSaeedi,was a key figure in the
Iranianfilm industryof the late 1960sand 1970s.One of
her first roles was a bit part in one of the most famous
pre-revolutionfilms, the pulpy revengedramaGheisar
(MasudKimiai,1969),in which,in a climacticsequence,
she performsan erotic dancein a nightclub;^5 in later years,
she had key roles in popularthrillerssuch asThe Morning
of the FourthDay(KamranShirdel,1972) andStrait(Amir
Naderi,1973),beforeturningto directingwithMaryamand
Mani(1979).That same year, her career,along with much
of the industryto which she belonged,was sweptaway by
the IslamicRevolution,whoseleadersusheredin a strict
censorshipregime^6 and bannedthose whoseearlierwork
was deemedto have contravenedit.^7 While a more auteur-
ist Iraniancinema,spearheadedby directorssuch as Abbas
Kiarostami,MohsenMakhmalbafand Panahi,achieved
internationalacclaimin the 1980sand 1990s,it was one
that, more often than not, featurednon-professionalactors
and (not alwayssuccessfully)tried to dodgecensorship
throughallusionand understatement;^8 Shahrzad,and many
otherslike her, meanwhile,were ostensibly erased from the
country’scinematichistory.
While the spectreof nationalauthoritarianismis present
under the surfaceof3 Faces, the more tangibleoppression
seen in the film is wieldedby the patriarchal,traditionally
minded community of Saran. Here, Panahi’s motivationshttp://www.metromagazine.com.au | © ATOM | Metro Magazine 201• 61