Wow. Just wow.
This is my second Jafar Panahi film (after the amazing “it was just an accident”). Panahi always creates a film that feels so very alive, there’s never a dull moment in his films. You almost become embalmed in the films while seeing them. You become a part of them.
His films beg you to ask questions, over and over, one after the other. This movie forces the viewer to ask a continuous barrage of questions, because it wants you to question the very genesis of societal norms. It wants you to reach the very core of the problem.
The prisoners aren’t just the girls, but also the soldiers. Both deliberately isolated from society by the state, by the regime.
The soldiers too, are in a prison. The jail-cell like bars on the exits of the stadium, which the soldiers are peeking through to watch the game are amazingly placed. Somewhat reminiscent of Andrzej Wajda’s cell like bars towards the end of “Kanal”. Although the message each cell gives is very different. But the core of each is same — A prison at the edge of freedom.
And the girls? They live in a prison inside of a prison. Beautifully metaphorical of what society truly is.
The prison is the state, the regime. The imposed will of the regime on the people. The men who want to go back home to their mothers and their cattle, but cannot. The orphaned boys rejected by their fathers, and their people.
Women are held captive not only by the state, but also by society itself—its culture, its sense of what is “right or wrong for a woman to do, hear, wear, or see”
And the ending is especially beautiful. Both the groups unite in the shared cheer and happiness. That shared joy, unification, and sense of human togetherness is the strongest act of rebellion against the oppressor. That is the seed, and the soil, the sun and the water. The life that will be born. The life that was always meant to be.
The only sport that can unite people like this is football. The shared sense of belonging, to the nation and to the people, and to the world.
The world’s game.
