These are from Elana:
1. Do you see any ethical problem with Samira Makhmalbaf ‘s decision to expose the private life of the Naderi family members to the public? The Apple is considered a docufiction. Considering the fact that the girls were little and socially retarded at the time the film was being made and their mother was blind and did not speak Persian, the only person with whom Samira could strike an agreement regarding participation in the film was the uneducated father of the family. In other words, did the father realize what he was getting into when he was signing a release form, if any? Throughout the film the mother curses a lot, which puts her in an unfavorable light. Did the woman realize that she was being filmed at those moments? Were those scenes staged and agreed upon, or were they documented with/without permission from the family? What do you think about the ethics of shooting a film like this?
2. What are the meanings of such symbols as the apple and the mirror in the film? Have you found any other symbols or symbolic representations in it (the watch, the hejab, hopscotch, the flowers, the railroad, the ladder, the bars and walls, etc.)?
3. How are women represented in the film: the mother of the family, the twins, the social worker, the female neighbors, the girls in the park? What spaces do they share (physical and social)? How are men represented in the film: the father of the family, the boys in the street, the seller of vegetables and the seller of the watches? What spaces belong to them? What conclusions can you make about gender roles in Iranian society upon watching the film?
4. What did not meet your expectations as a viewer brought up within a Western culture, while you were watching the film? For me, for example, it was very strange to see the social worker knock at the neighbors’ doors and ask them for a saw.
5. What political questions does the film touch upon (for example, religious faith vs. social progress; the importance of women in bringing about changes in Iranian society)? What class issues does the film bring up?
6. What cinematic techniques (shots, perspectives, etc.) does Samira use to convey the main ideas of the film?
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ReplyDelete1. Do you see any ethical problem with Samira Makhmalbaf ‘s decision to expose the private life of the Naderi family members to the public?, etc.
ReplyDeleteIf one were making a documentary in the U.S. at present, especially one that addressed legal, political or culturally sensitive issues, and you conducted interviews with an involved party, then you would need to have the interviewee sign a formal release. Such a release is needed to acquire the consent of the interviewee to have his/her image and any statements that he/she might make during filming included in the production; as such, it indemnifies the filmmaker from future legal complaints by the interviewee that he/she had been libeled or otherwise misrepresented.
In Samira Makhmalbaf's quasi-fictionalized docu-film, in which only the social services worker is played by an actress, the entire Naderi family may not be capable--by the standards of Western media--of giving consent to their representation in The Apple. The father, who is represented as responsible for the confinement of his daughters, repeatedly protests that his neighbors have libeled him, i.e. bringing false claims, and ruining what little there is of an unemployed, poorly educated man's reputation. Could he have reasonably consented to Makhmalbaf's request for permission to film him and his family? In his home, devoid of utilities and media technology, would he have even understood that the film would further represent his reprehensible actions to the world? It doesn't seem to be so. Nor the mother, who presumably could neither read nor write Farsi; much less the daughters, who would have required their parents' consent.
In the end, the father who protests that he's been disgraced by his neighbors is further disgraced by his participation in the film. With not enough money for food for his family, it's unlikely he could hire a lawyer to protect what few rights he had.