One of the most important films released in 2022 is Jafar Panahi's "No Bears," but I wonder if it's only a great film if you know and understand the context in which it was made. Panahi, who has been under various forms of house arrest and filmmaking bans since 2010, made the film illegally in Iran, As a result, he was imprisoned along with two other directors for several months. "No Bears" is about two couples trying to escape Iran, and includes situations that are allegories for the oppression of Iranians by the current regime. As with his previous films, Panahi also plays with several layers of reality, including placing himself in the thick of the action as the main character.
In the film, Panahi attends a wedding in a remote village, staying with an amiable host named Ghanbar (Vahid Mobaseri). He shoots some footage and takes pictures during his stay, and travels too close to the border, raising suspicions. Soon, it comes out that a young couple, Gozal (Darya Alei) and Solduz (Amir Davar), are planning to run away together, even though Gozal is supposed to marry another man. Various villagers are convinced that Panahi took a picture of Gozal and Solduz that is evidence of their love affair. Panahi is subsequently subjected to more and more Kafkaesque rounds of interrogation by the villagers, who are certain that the picture exists. Their arguments are convincing enough that I'm still not sure whether or not Panahi actually took the photo.
At the same time, Panahi is remotely directing scenes for his newest film, which depicts a different couple in Turkey, Bakhtiar (Bakhtiar Panjei) and Zara (Mina Kavani), trying to use fake documents to leave the country. The film within the film is a blend of documentary and fiction, where the escape attempt is genuine, even though the specifics of the scenes are being dramatized. And the lines are blurry enough that I was convinced for a few scenes that we were watching some footage filmed during a real escape attempt, instead of Panjei and Kavani reenacting scenes from their own lives. This mix of reality and fiction has been used by Panahi and his fellow Iranian filmmakers before, but rarely for stories this bleak and immediate.
The production was clearly very constrained, and much of the footage wasn't shot under the best conditions. The handheld portions in particular are very rough. The script also hinges on a lot of coincidences and compressed timelines that break the story's immersion. As powerful as the ending is, it strains credibility that all these events should have played out at the same time. However, "No Bears" is absolutely brimming over with very real emotion from everyone involved. This is especially true of Panahi himself, who seems to be channeling all the frustration of having to be a witness to these tragic stories of desperate people driven to the brink. The film's title comes from an anecdote told to Panahi, about how people act to protect themselves against a threat that isn't actually there, in order to keep the peace and the status quo. However, these lies have their own consequences.
Some foreknowledge of Jafar Panahi's career and the situation in Iran is necessary to parse what's going on in "No Bears." I think it's a good idea to have seen some of Panahi's earlier films made during his arrest as well, like "This is Not a Film," to appreciate how far he and filmmaking technology have come over the past decade. Watching him direct over Zoom calls, and casually enlist other people to help with the production is very poignant. I don't think that "No Bears" is one of his better films, because it delivers its messages bluntly and some of the execution is clumsy. However, it is an absolutely vital piece of filmmaking that I'm glad I was able to see.
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