“The Other” in Iranian Neorealist Cinema (Case Study: Blackboard and The Wind Will Carry Us) مقاله

چکیده:

The dominant image of Kurds in Iranian cinema of the 60s and 70s is structured around a dualistic opposition, with one side depicting them as simple-hearted, traditional, rural, and hospitable people, and the other side portraying them as violent, deceived, and villainous individuals. This image, particularly presented in war cinema and some television series and films, was a result of the tensions and conflicts that objectively existed in border areas during the early years of the revolution and concurrently with the Iran-Iraq War. With the end of the war and the beginning of the reconstruction era and the expansion of communication among Iranians, this image of the Kurds gradually changed, and their portrayal in literary and artistic texts took on a different form. From there, some writers and artists decided to present a more realistic image of this “Other,” meaning going to their place of residence and taking a camera to capture everything that actually happens. Two films, Blackboard (Samira Makhmalbaf) and The Wind Will Carry Us (Abbas Kiarostami), were made based on this logic (with the difference that the subject of the second work, at least overtly, is by no means about being Kurdish, ethnicity, or the Other, and such a thing can only be revealed through a symptomatic reading from within its contradictions). These two works, made at the end of the 70s, are among the first works that have tried to distance themselves from that dominant image. This article attempts to answer the question of how these two films represent the works of the Kurds through a “symptomatic reading”? What stereotypes and images do they use? And is a realistic representation of the “Other” even possible? Symptomatic analysis shows that the image of the Kurds in these two works is a product of applying the same stereotypes and images that exist in the real world about the Kurds, and is the basis of the interaction of the dominant culture with them, as well as the basis of many policies related to them. In this image, being Kurdish is identical with “pristine nature,” “old traditions,” “simplicity,” and “resistance to change.”