Bluesdoctor's Review
A fairly long review that uses some big words to make the appearance of intelligence, this review shows an all too-common political view:
"Panahi tries to connect public and private, but his reach into either isn't far. Although he shows arbitrary police arrests and the decadent opulence of the ultra rich, he fails to widen his scope to depict, or even imply, the underlying reasons for the mess. Even though he was officially reprimanded for releasing "Crimson Gold" without first submitting it to Iranian censors for review, even though some scenes were shot while dodging the police, the film fails to draw the bigger connections, provide a historical context, of the partnership between Iran's corrupt autocracy and religious fundamentalism ultimately responsible for Hussein's misery and Panahi's struggle to tell it. In fact, Iran's clergy and religious life are strangely absent, just as there is no allusion to the source of wealth and power of the ruling class. Contrast how public and private are seamlessly melded in post-war Italian social realism. By comparison, the films coming out of Iran uniformly suffer from a poverty of imagination, a self-censorship and artistic inhibition I suspect are inherent to Islamic culture. "
Bluesdoctor seems to indict this film for not getting into specific "causes" and "sources" of the wealth of the ruling class -- since Bluesdoctor is clearly not following a Marxist line, one can only assume he is referring to a hatred for the Islamic religion, probably coming from a Christian or Judaist perspective. However, this film is clearly an artistic film, not a political or religious film -- to start describing in a specific political party or religious group's terms what is going on would be to turn it into mere propaganda, instead of putting something out which allows the viewers to decide on their own what conclusions to come to.
The last sentence of his review -- "the films coming out of Iran uniformly suffer from a poverty of imagination, a self-censorship and artistic inhibition I suspect are inherent to Islamic culture" -- is at best a disappointing and generalizing shot at the Islamic religion, and at worst a racist statement that reveals a bizarre, nationalistic, reactionary political standpoint, which, unfortunately seems to be rather common these days.
The author also fails to comprehend the movie, which is probably partially why he dislikes it:
"Key elements of the plot seem arbitrary, merely contrived to make didactic points -- there's no compelling reason for Hussein and his brother-in-law-to-be to seek out and keep returning to the jewlery store; instead, the store seems a contrived symbol. It's hard to believe that the desultory insults of a single jeweler could effect Hussein so profoundly, especially considering the buffets and indignities meted out to him on a daily basis by society as a whole -- the jeweler's callousness is not convincing as a "last straw.""
Human life is not as simple as a mathematical equation, i.e. if you put a certain input you always get the same output, and if you put a smaller/larger input you result in a smaller/larger number. It seems this author has never had any moment that sticks in his mind, even though there is no apparent and immediate reason for it to stay instead of others. I would guess most people could think of a particular insult, joke, game, person, etc. from grade school that they can remember that was perfectly ordinary and yet somehow remains in their memory, despite the fact that thousands of other memories like these have been forgotten.
Again, bluesdoctor's political pretexts reflect this complaint: because he believes "Islamic culture" is inherently self-censored, lacking intelligence, etc, these events which depict a conflict between the official authorities and the working class seem unreal because, obviously the oppressive government is not actually in conflict with the aspirations of the people but actually a result of their oppressive "culture".
I also find it hilarious that the author complains about boring filming techniques. There is nothing wrong with the camerawork in this film, the only problem is that Bluesdoctor is used to and expects flashy camera techniques to fill in the vast void of substance that is present in many movies, Iranian and American alike -- even though he puts on a facade of intellectualism.
According to Bluesdoctor, a movie featuring an actual pizza deliveryman acting as a pizza deliveryman and based on actual events is "unbelievable" and which lacks flashy filming techniques or special effects is "boring". The film which comes from Iran, and is subsequently banned in Iran, is of course going to be "self-censored" and suffer from a "poverty of imagination" -- because Islamic culture, and probably all of the people who practice it, are inherently dumb.