18/02/2023 - BERLINALE 2023: In the first of his two documentaries screening at Berlin, Mehran Tamadon recreates the horrific experiences of three former Iranian political prisoners, to a controversial result

Paris-based Iranian director Mehran Tamadon is at the Berlinale this year with a diptych, of sorts. In the two documentaries Where God Is Not [+see also:
trailer
interview: Mehran Tamadon
film profile], world-premiering in Forum, and My Worst Enemy [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Mehran Tamadon
film profile], showing in Encounters, he speaks to former Iranian political prisoners now living in Paris. Following up on Iranian [+see also:
trailer
film profile] (Berlinale Forum 2014) and Bassidji (a Ji.hlava winner in 2009), where he tried to create a dialogue with supporters of the regime, Tamadon is interested in confrontational, interventionist cinema that inevitably yields controversial results.

For Where God Is Not, the director has invited three former detainees to talk about their experiences in the infamous Evin and Ghezel Hesar prisons. One of them is Taghi Rahmani, “Iran’s most frequently jailed journalist”, according to Reporters Without Borders, and as the film opens with him and Tamadon talking animatedly and in good spirits on the streets of Paris, we can hardly predict where it will take us. But soon enough, they arrive at a warehouse that will serve as a stand-in for cells and torture rooms, where Rahmani will prove to be the most articulate and philosophical of the interviewees.

Another protagonist is Mazyar Ebrahimi, the only one of the three who tells us exactly how he ended up in prison: an owner of a video-equipment rental company, he was accused of being a spy by competitors with ties to the regime. A large, strong man, he explains to Tamadon that the flimsy metal bed he has as a prop wouldn't sustain the horrible torture methods, so he helps by welding another, sturdier frame on top of it. Ebrahimi's testimony is the most physical and detailed as he ties up the director in the “bundle” position: lying on his belly, hands behind his back, chained to his bent legs. He goes on to describe the awful effect this has on the prisoner's body when his feet are whipped with an electric cable – in addition to vividly introducing us to a couple of other torture procedures.

The third character is Homa Kahlori, who was a prisoner in the 1980s and who subsequently published the book A Coffin for the Living about her experience. The “coffin” refers to a torture method devised by an interrogator who was famous for his cruelty, and she and Tamadon recreate the room in which it was executed. At first, her recollections describe the solidarity and support the women had for each other, but soon enough, they turn into the most devastating part of the film. Kahlori re-lives her trauma and especially her shame: in tears, she relates how she was psychologically broken by the torturers and became a “collaborator”, having been put in charge of one of the prison's sections.

The claustrophobic set-up and the intuitive, responsive camerawork by Patrick Tresch immerse us in this painfully convincing picture of the protagonists' horrible experiences, but the pain belongs to them only. The director and the audience get just a glimpse of it, so intense that we realise we can't possibly fathom their emotions or the now-relived suffering. This is the main ethical crux of the film and can serve as a significant addition to the important and always ongoing conversation about the responsibility of a documentary filmmaker.

Tamadon's framing device is that this is a film aimed at the torturers: if they saw it, he reasons, they would be confronted with their crimes and reflect on them. Of course, that sounds naive and even more controversial when coupled with the concerns elaborated above, giving the viewer more food for thought and fuel for outrage, but there is little doubt that the director knows what he is doing.

Where God Is Not was produced by Bordeaux-based L'atelier documentaire, and Andana Films handles the international rights.