INDEPENDENT FILM FOR INDEPENDENT MINDS

The question of cinema speaking to an audience is very much to the fore in Shirin, the entire film consisting of head-and-shoulder shots of an audience in a movie theatre watching a film - an adaptation of a 12th century epic Persian poem - that we hear but never see. Not insignificantly, the faces we see reacting to the film are all those of women, with men being visible only occasionally in the background. This prompts a range of emotions and reactions, forcing you to reflect on the experience of cinema itself, the absurdity of sitting in a darkened room, looking at clearly manufactured images - watching reactions of actors (the surprise appearance of Juliette Binoche bringing that realisation home to anyone who doesn’t recognise the faces of the Iranian actors on the screen), emoting to something intangible.