G.THE BEARS DO NOT EXIST
Genre: metaphorical-political drama
Direction: Jafar Panahi. With Jafar Panahi, Naser Hashemi, Reza Heydari, Mina Kavani, Sinan Yusufoglu, Mina Khosrovani, Bülent Keser, Vahid Mobasheri.
Bakhtiar Panjei and Mina Kavani in “Bears don’t exist” (© 2022 JP Production).
Condemned not to make films but very skilled in using the loopholes that Iranian hypocrisy ends up granting him, worried about international reactions, Panahi continues to use cinema to reflect on his country, on its condition and on the meaning of his work.
Here is a director – Panahi himself – who is shooting a film on the Turkish-Iranian border, he in Iran and the crew abroad (he directs from the computer what an assistant organizes in Turkey), he then ends up being involved in a local diatribe because of a photo he allegedly took of two clandestine boyfriends.
In addition to the fact that the two protagonists of the film, which tells of a couple who tries to illegally arrive in Europe, have repeatedly tried to escape themselves, always failing. Here then is that fiction and reality, cinema and news intertwine in a dizzying exchange of roles, where Panahi himself ends up losing his identity and wondering about his role.
And which gives the viewer the opportunity to reflect on the strength of images and their value as proof of truth (for engaged couples) but also as a possible utopia (for actors who would really like to emigrate). Not to be missed.
For those who want a cinema that knows how to stimulate intelligence.
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