In "Closed Curtain" (2013) Panahi already used metaphor as a narrative tool to comment on his professional ban (amazingly, he never stopped making films all this time, and only after this one he got arrested). Ten years ago, he also fled to a reclusive location where he interacted with characters who may or not have been figments of his imagination. It was a comment on what this isolation did to his psyche and confused many viewers.
Now, he is again in a remote location but becomes embroiled in a local feud. While directing a film crew on the other side of the border via laptop, he is at first courteously, then menacingly asked to hand over a picture he is supposed to have taken. His claims of never having done that are not believed until a Kafkaesque town hall scene, where he takes a vow in front of the village elders. Yet both the couple he intends (?) to protect and the couple he directs across the border - playing out their real story - meet a tragic end.
As in "Closed Curtain", some plot elements represent fantastic realism like the trip to the border which he did not intend to, and that the film crew in Turkey is working in a town on a shore, when the only body of water there is Lake Van, 100 km from the nearest checkpoint. The story makes no sense whatsoever, a refugee couple trying to emigrate to the West would be in Istanbul, not in the far east. The presence of an outsider in a border town would alert authorities much sooner. Whether or not to accuse a couple to have an illicit relation would rely on testimonials and not on a picture. But the village, the film, the conflict might all be a dream - in fact, that is the only explanation that makes any sense.
Therefore, viewers should focus on their feeling of growing discomfort and detachment. Panahi is trying once again to communicate what his bizarre situation feels like. And once again, he will reach some of his viewers who can let go of expectations, and he will lose others who believe that a film should have structure and a decipherable meaning.
Now, he is again in a remote location but becomes embroiled in a local feud. While directing a film crew on the other side of the border via laptop, he is at first courteously, then menacingly asked to hand over a picture he is supposed to have taken. His claims of never having done that are not believed until a Kafkaesque town hall scene, where he takes a vow in front of the village elders. Yet both the couple he intends (?) to protect and the couple he directs across the border - playing out their real story - meet a tragic end.
As in "Closed Curtain", some plot elements represent fantastic realism like the trip to the border which he did not intend to, and that the film crew in Turkey is working in a town on a shore, when the only body of water there is Lake Van, 100 km from the nearest checkpoint. The story makes no sense whatsoever, a refugee couple trying to emigrate to the West would be in Istanbul, not in the far east. The presence of an outsider in a border town would alert authorities much sooner. Whether or not to accuse a couple to have an illicit relation would rely on testimonials and not on a picture. But the village, the film, the conflict might all be a dream - in fact, that is the only explanation that makes any sense.
Therefore, viewers should focus on their feeling of growing discomfort and detachment. Panahi is trying once again to communicate what his bizarre situation feels like. And once again, he will reach some of his viewers who can let go of expectations, and he will lose others who believe that a film should have structure and a decipherable meaning.