Before No Bears could be released in its native country, Iranian director Jafar Panahi was arrested and sentenced to six years in prison. While the filmmaker sat in jail, his film was smuggled out of the country, making its way to the 79th Venice Film Festival, where it won the Special Jury Prize. Back in Iran, this now internationally acclaimed film was deemed “propaganda against the regime,” and Panahi stayed in prison (where he is to this day), despite overwhelming outcry from the global film community.
Made in secret (Panahi had already been warned by Iranian officials not to make any more films, or leave the country), No Bears is a detailed meta look at both Panahi’s status as a dissident in a country he truly loves and at the impact filmmakers have on the lives of those they observe. It’s a contemplative study that asks necessary questions about an artist’s duty to hold a mirror to society despite what it sees, and how that society should respond to its own reflection. Panahi’s answers may seem ambiguous at first, but underneath the surface of this layered film lies a deep introspection – perhaps even guilt – over his life as a filmmaker, and whether or not it’s been worth a damn.
No Bears begins as an Iranian couple in an unknown city argues over the fake passports they’ll use to escape to France. In a state of anger, the woman (Mina Kavani) storms off, leaving the man (Bakhtiar Panjei) distraught and standing in the street. Just as the forlorn fellow resigns himself to whatever fate may come next, an offscreen voice loudly calls “Cut!” and a film crew quickly descends to make adjustments and prepare for another take of the illusion we’ve just witnessed.
As the camera dollies out, we see that the director of this production is not present on set but is instead at a remote location, overseeing the operation via video conference. Just after he calls for a retake, however, he loses his internet connection and is cut off from his distant actors and assistants. While trying to regain a signal, a parallel story begins to emerge – this one about a big city filmmaker (Panahi, as a nearly bumbling version of himself) renting a room in a rural village on the border between Iran and Turkey, and the trouble he gets himself into with the superstitious locals over a photograph he may or may not have taken.
As the story progresses, we come to learn that the director has been ordered by the Iranian government not to leave the country or to make any more films (sound familiar?), which is why he’s making this one in secret just across the Turkish border. To further complicate matters, the basis for his secret film – the Iranian couple attempting to flee to France – is real and happening in real time during production. The director is dramatizing each step in their dangerous plight as it happens, even encouraging them to take risks such as bringing a cameraman along when they meet with a shady passport forger.
This circulating feedback loop of “art imitating life imitating art,” and so on, cannot sustain itself forever, and when it finally comes to an abrupt halt, its brief aftermath is one of the most ethically and emotionally pensive cinematic moments I’ve seen in some time. Somehow, Panahi has taken the “film within a film” concept, merged it with a rural comedy of manners, and then transformed it into a subtle yet barbed attack on a government that would keep its artists locked up rather than be criticized. To top things off, he then points his camera squarely at himself and awaits final judgment for the risks he has knowingly asked others to take for the sake of his art (and perhaps ego), and for whether or not any of it meant anything at all in the end.
I’ve seen No Bears twice now, and I’ll gladly see it again and again. Its creativity, humor, and subversive messaging get better with each viewing, while the renegade spirit with which it was created grows more powerful and poignant. No Bears may be a small film compared to even the most modest of American productions, but its importance and courage transcend borders and whole governments.
James is a writer, record collector, wrestling nerd, and tabletop gamer living with his family in Asheville, North Carolina. He is a member of the Southeastern Film Critics Association, the North Carolina Film Critics Association, and contributes to The Daily Orca, Razorcake Magazine, Mountain Xpress, and Asheville Movies.