cinema trust Hamid Mozafari, the deputy producer of the movie “Saraghaz” which is on the cinema screen, stated the above in a conversation with Radio Tehran He stated: What causes any kind of cinema to deviate and go off the right path is that the creators of the works do not have a worldview and only follow successful examples.
He continued: If we look at the trendsetters of Iranian cinema, although in the beginning they tried to copy western models, be it Hollywood or European, but from some point on, they tried to present their views and teachings in the form of images. Provide animation.
Referring to the use of the Hollywood model of producing alternative films in “Saraghaz”, Hamed Mozafari said: “Saraghaz” is not a mainstream film or belongs to mainstream cinema. With the requirements of entertaining cinema. The main goal in any kind of art should be to attract the audience, but the era of wanting to make avant-garde gestures and produce a film that even we cannot put the synapse on paper is over. In the film “Saraghaz”, the basis of the narrative was a story in accordance with scientific aspects about reincarnation and entering parallel worlds, but for storytelling, we took advantage of the most commonly understood narrative, which deals with the fundamental issues of men and women and families.
The deputy producer of the film “Saraghaz” said about the recent attacks against commercialization in Iranian cinema: these attacks are not new and have been prevalent for more than sixty years, that is, since the story of alternative filmmaking and, as a result, the new wave, appeared in Iranian cinema, and it continues. But do all movies have to be blockbusters? It seems that this story is rooted in the same lack of purpose for film production; Why does a filmmaker who has made a used story structure into a narrative based on his own words minimal and is imitating Asghar Farhadi, expect his film to sell? When you assume that the audience is ignorant, it is clear that your film will not sell, otherwise it is incorrect to say that only comedies sell, but it is more correct to say that comedies sell more, otherwise, this year, non-comedy films such as “Bodyless” and “Drunk on Love” will also be released this year. We had some that sold well, and there were comedy films like “Galhak” that didn’t sell well.
He pointed out: If commercialization means producing a movie to attract the audience, not only is there nothing wrong with it, but it is also a completely logical action. Of course, some have been able to enter the festival business, that is, they go from the beginning and make a film favorable to a number of prominent foreign festivals, which by rotating in the same festivals and winning a few cash prizes, can make money, otherwise, we make a film for the sake of experimentation without considering The audience’s desire, the result is a lot of works that either stay behind the screening line or if they are screened, they are placed at the bottom of the sales chart.
Hamed Mozafari, who has a background in media work and is the director of Cinemarozan’s analytical media, spoke about how to combine two elements of attracting general and special audiences in the production of the movie “Saragaz”: this movie was produced for a special audience, but in storytelling and characterization and injection of adventures For the narration, an attempt was made to choose a tone that would attract even the casual audience of the cinema. As a result of this view, in the screenings of the film, we see audiences from two spectrums who, despite the criticisms they have had on the film, all of them admit that they have followed the different stories of the film and have seen the film until the end in order to unravel the knot. to understand
How to combine the theories of physics with the language of cinema in “Saragaz” is another issue that Hamed Mozafari said about: Because my academic education is fluid mechanics engineering, I was not unaware of the scientific connection of the story and I tried to interact with Shahab. Kazemi, the producer of the film, and Saeed Hosseini, the director, work on a kind of overlapping about the use of concrete theories of physics in the story layers. To go and make a movie about the life of a physicist is another discussion, but in “The Beginning”, the principle was to make the human form of physical rules govern the structure of human communication.
This film critic stated that the most important way to revive alternative cinema is to appeal to the votes of cinema elders, and emphasized: When Bahram Bayzaei clearly says that he did not expect to see as many films as “Regbar” and “Gharibeh and Meh” as the so-called Persian films, It means confirming the vicious circle of attack against business makers. The same Bahram Baizai made a film called “Dog Killing” which was the result of combining his life in analyzing the problems of a certain time period with audience-friendly elements, and we saw that not only the film was chosen by the audience of the Fajr Film Festival, but it was also able to be screened in one of the The worst periods of the film, achieve great sales. The question is, why don’t some of our filmmakers, who happen to have good organizational affiliations, learn from this experience? And they keep chanting in lamentation of Bayzai’s emigration. Baizai even made his latest film “When We Are Sleeping”, which was a harsh criticism of the backstage of the cinema, again using popular storytelling, but those who were against the commercial producers not only did not welcome the film – maybe because it exposed their true identity – but also They put pressure on him that after that film and despite receiving approval in principle for unique scripts such as “Destination” and “Occupation”, he was unable to make a film and finally had to emigrate. When the veteran actor Shahab Hosseini wanted to make his first film, he made one of the most complex and at the same time the most dramatic scripts of Mohammad Hadi Karimi titled “Middle Class Dweller” the focus of the filmmaking, and as the author of the scenario, he was an experienced person who had passed the test and he himself The title of the project manager was present in the project, it turned into a film that was released in the Azad group and in the month of Muharram and Safar, but it was able to become one of the most successful non-comedy works of Iranian cinema.
Hamed Mozafari said about filmmakers assuming the audience to be intelligent and ahead of themselves: How does a filmmaker who has not even read a popular magazine in his life want to make a film? How can a filmmaker who still looks at the opinions of two decades ago, grow in the same festival business? Now, the festivalization of world cinema has also reached filmmakers like Yorgos Lanthimos of Greek descent, who presents the most complex philosophical concepts in the form of a moving story with beautiful colors and multiple characters in “Types of Kindness” or “Bachargan”, but some critics Commercial cinema can’t even turn a crime story into a movie like Kazem Daneshi and examples like “Alafzaar” and “Bei Bodan” on the ground.
This veteran member of the Cinema Writers and Critics Association said on how to combine natural sciences with cinema: regardless of the fact that one should have the necessary natural knowledge in the area under discussion, at the same time, one should know cinema and different cinematic trends and most importantly, do not copy. Some people don’t even understand Einstein’s theory of relativity and make a science film about traveling to the future, while the same theory says that if you can overcome the speed of light, you can only travel to the past! Of course, this is the difference between a fictional film and a scientific narrative, and when we wanted to talk about entering parallel worlds in “Saraghaz”, we used the existing scientific viewpoints, and fortunately, the audience understood the film’s message as much as they did, and at the same time Some physics professors who saw the film in private screenings praised its scientific credibility.
Expressing his hope about the creation of conditions for the growth of all types of cinema, he noted: Iranian cinema and television have had significant experiences in different genres of ahistorical crime, supernatural, war, melodrama, and comedy in different eras. We hope that the younger generation will definitely pay attention to the history of Iranian cinema and the experiences of genre-oriented people like Samuel Khachikian, Ali Hatami, Dawood Mirbagheri, Hamid Rakhshani, Rasool Malaqlipour, Dariush Mehrjooi, etc., and then see if they can do better than them or not? If they realize that even a third of them are not such models, it is better to keep experimenting. The thirst for filmmaking without worldview is nothing but a waste of time, energy and capital.