Middle East Media and Book Reviews Online Volume 1, Issue 1 | Page 7

2/2/2016

Middle East Media and Book Reviews Online

Shi'i Islam in Iranian Cinema
By: Nacim Pak-Shiraz
Shi'i Islam in Iranian Cinema. Nacim Pak-Shiraz. London: I.B.Tauris, 2011. 239pp. ISBN: 978-1848855106.
Volume: 1 Issue: 1
April 2013
Review by
Roxanne D. Marcotte, PhD
University of Quebec in Montreal
Canada
Lecturer in Film and Persian Studies, Pak-Shiraz wrote a fine study entirely dedicated to religion and cinema in post-revolutionary Iran. The work
explores various cinematic representations of religion and spirituality in a number of Iranian films. In addition, fieldwork undertaken at the Fajr
International Film Festival (2004 to 2006) afforded her invaluable opportunities to study local Iranian discourses on the relation between religion
and cinema.
Since films can be viewed “as a valid and important tool in the understanding of many of the current debates within Iran, rooted as they are in much
older historical and traditional discourses on religion, power and politics” (p. 13), the author has chosen socio-historical and cultural approaches for
her exploration of how the two interact. Accordingly, long discussions on various aspects of Shi‘ism in Iran are included throughout the work, and
provide necessary background for those unfamiliar with the religion.
A first introductory historical overview (pp.1-33) of Shi‘ism in Iran (origin, development, role of clergy, and madrasah) presents a number of
religious, social and political elements important for the contextualization of later debates on the role of the clergy. Next, one plunges into a
fascinating chapter on how Iranians have attempted to define religion and spirituality in cinema, and the debates that have surrounded discussions
on their interrelation (pp. 35-65). For example, the addition of a “Spiritual (ma‘nagara) Cinema” category during the 2005 Fajr International Film
Festival generated further debates the author reviews with a survey of current and previous Iranian post-revolutionary (after 1979) discourses on
religion, spirituality and cinema: Islamic jurisprudential writings, philosophical (mostly Heidegger-inspired) discussions on the “technological art”,
“official” responses (definitions, critiques), and the approaches of film critics and opponents of this newly coined term of “spiritual” cinema. These
discussions remain important contributions to the work, although further analysis of the significance of those debates and of the implications and
significance of institutionalized discourses over this contested term, as well as a previous (long before 2005) “official” understanding of the role of
religion, and its use (for ideological purposes) could have been further explored.
The following four chapters study the “filmic discourses”, or representations and depictions of religion and spirituality. The first chapter looks at
the filmic discourse on the role of the clergy (pp. 67-92) deployed by Reza Mirkarimi in his depictions of the clergy in Under the Moonlight (2001)
and those put forward by Kamal Tabrizi in The Lizard (2004). This “formalistic” approach to religion is opposed to the “personal” approach in the
chapter that explores the Sufi and mystical filmic discourse that is found in the works of Majid Majidi (pp. 93-121). Concepts such as intuition and
inward light, love, the