Salam Cinema - Mohsen Makhmalbaf

An old man with broken dreams, a young schoolgirl with dreams in her eyes but veil over her delicate face, a young man aspiring to being transformed from a nobody to a star – there is an actor in each of us that is always raring to come out. And it is that actor Mohsen Makhmalbaf wanted to capture in his camera and present to the world. He shoots two birds with one stone in this one – provide a stunning salute to the spirit of cinema on its centennial anniversary, and gives the very audience who adore cinema a shot at stardom.

When the turbulent water breaks down the dam that’s holding it back, the torrent is sometimes powerful enough to force everything out of it’s way. And similarly when you open the floodgates of dreams for people to rush through and grab once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, they don’t just jog but sprint. Thousands of aspirants with hope in their eyes line up along the streets of Tehran after Makhmalbaf announces in the papers that he is looking for actors for his next movie – a film about people who want to become actors.

As Makhmalbaf reveals that they are all both the subject as well as the actors, there seems a glint of hope in the eyes of the unfathomable ocean of people as forms are flung into the air and there is practically a stampede to grab them. The camera then switches to the audition hall, and this is where the movie really starts. A select few are chosen to appear in front of the camera, and prove why they should be become actors. Hadi, a youth pretending to be blind, claims that he is passionate about cinema and would do anything for it (including trying to fool Makhmalbaf into buying his blind act). Desperation leads to innovation – as we see in his case. His efforts pay off as Makhmalbaf tells him that he’s chosen for the role of a blind man. Next in turn are a bunch of [rather confused] young girls and a dozen men straining their vocal chords and spilling blood in imaginary Hollywood-ish worlds rather comically. Paul Newman look alike, Harrison Ford look-alike, Iranian Marilyn Monroes (by their own admission), you name it and they are there. If some have come to test their histrionic skills, then others have come with their own agendas. A girl wants to feature in Makhmalbaf’s film so she can reach out to her lover who has left Iran. Majority of the movie revolves around two girls who are questioned relentlessly by Makhmalbaf on the issues of morality and their love of the art. With them, he is cryptic, cruel, kind and manipulative, and he goes to the point of driving them insane, but somehow he does it in a humane way. Like a real maestro, he dodges the questions they fling back at them, and never really answers any. He also puts them in his shoes which almost fit them comfortably as they ape his stance towards the other aspirants. He ultimately reveals that they were all a part of the movie, and the audition was ACTUALLY the movie itself (only a mystery to those in it).

Towards the end of the movie, he declares that “there is room for everyone in cinema. If cinema reflects on life, then there is room for everyone”. And that’s exactly what he intended with Salam Cinema – to take the very people who live, breathe, eat cinema and chronicle their fears, lies, aspirations and ideologies while giving them what they want – an inch of room in the endless space of cinema where many come and perish without even a name. Though he did not promise them future full of their dreams, he nevertheless manages to fulfill their desire to etch themselves on the walls of cinema’s history. As much as this movie scores highly on the concept value, it is definitely not his most accomplished work. Makhmalbaf’s philandering with his “actors” dreams is sometimes pointless and repetitive. As a director, one believes that he could perhaps have dug a lot deeper inside an individual than he did to expose them better. However after some point, the questions seem, for a lack of a better word, inadequate. He does well to change his stance to that of an understanding individual to one who’s intimidating and frankly, quite irritating, in order to probe them about the value of the “art” to them, but in many cases one almost wishes that he found more obsessed and idiosyncratic characters than the routine ones he chooses.

Nevertheless Makhmalbaf’s documentary, not without flaws, is definitely one to pay a salam (salute) to – a salute to the spirit of people, and to the spirit of cinema.