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20261010 080000 UTC
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[00:00:00] BBC and on You are like me. fooled? There is
[00:00:02] online nothing that has faith. Then I became very interested in music. My father also had a very large santour. He was the first person who encouraged me to play the santour, and from the age of 10, I had become a santour player. I worked from them and I was very interested in classical music. Then I got into the phase of wanting to become an orchestra conductor and so on. I imagined myself as a symphony orchestra conductor.
[00:00:10] platforms and now on BBC Persian television
[00:00:29] the murder. Dariush Mehrjui and his wife Vahideh
[00:00:32] Mohammadifar was only a few months.
[00:00:35] When does an artist's death happen?
[00:00:38] Hadn't they killed him at least
[00:00:42] 6 times in all these years?
[00:01:11] Hello, welcome to this week's Aparat program. I am
[00:01:15] Hassan Soalju. This week's program was supposed to be the
[00:01:18] start of a review of the films of a brilliant,
[00:01:22] pioneering, and unique filmmaker in the history
[00:01:25] of Iranian cinema. But on the evening of the twenty-second,
[00:01:33] someone or some people attacked the personal
[00:01:36] home of this artist, filmmaker, writer,
[00:01:40] painter, translator, and murdered him and his
[00:01:43] wife. At that time, many rumors and
[00:01:47] speculations were raised about the murder of this artistic
[00:01:51] couple. And despite the fact that the Iranian government has attributed
[00:01:55] the murder to two or three teenagers
[00:01:59] and raised the issue of financial dispute between the
[00:02:01] killer and the victims, there are still many
[00:02:05] speculations about the political nature of this crime,
[00:02:08] especially since the main suspect, who has been
[00:02:11] arrested, still denies involvement in this murder,
[00:02:15] and the lawyers of the Mehrjui family
[00:02:19] speak of many ambiguities and unanswered
[00:02:22] questions remaining in this case.
[00:02:25] But what series of events
[00:02:29] turned the prayer-loving, santur-playing Tehranite
[00:02:33] boy into the great Dariush Mehrjui we
[00:02:35] know? By making the film "The Diamond in the L minor scale",
[00:02:39] I tried to find an answer to this
[00:02:42] question. Dariush Mehrjui was a filmmaker who, in the
[00:02:46] clear sense of the word, was considered a social
[00:02:49] filmmaker. Someone who in his works was concerned with
[00:02:53] social issues and was not just a craftsman
[00:02:56] mastering the tools of cinema. He was a very good storyteller,
[00:03:00] but his films, from "The Cow"
[00:03:03] to "L Minor", rather than being storytelling
[00:03:07] and entertaining, were a reflection of
[00:03:10] the social conditions and prevalent issues
[00:03:13] of society in his time. Therefore, his most
[00:03:17] important films, both before and after the revolution,
[00:03:20] were often banned for a long time and
[00:03:24] caused him many problems. His
[00:03:27] philosophical knowledge of the world as
[00:03:31] a filmmaker was an addition that distinguished
[00:03:34] Dariush Mehrjui from many other filmmakers.
[00:03:38] His innovations in storytelling brought new depth and richness
[00:03:42] to Iranian cinema and also influenced subsequent
[00:03:45] generations of filmmakers in Iran. Mr.
[00:03:48] Mehrjui is also considered one of the
[00:03:51] recognized pioneers of the New Wave of Iranian
[00:03:55] cinema internationally. But the murder of an artist
[00:03:58] does not happen only physically. Every time an
[00:04:02] idea is censored, a thought is actually
[00:04:05] murdered. Dariush Mehrjui,
[00:04:08] before his physical murder at the age of 83,
[00:04:12] had been censored many, many
[00:04:15] times. Watch the film "The Diamond in the L minor scale".
[00:07:39] Around 12 past midnight, news reached the news agency. censorship.
[00:09:26] Both before and after the revolution, nothing has changed. This
[00:09:29] mentality, this elite-killing
[00:10:39] From childhood, I
[00:10:41] was raised with two important elements:
[00:10:45] one was religion and the other was music.
[00:10:48] I was influenced by my mother and
[00:10:52] grandmother, and so on.
[00:10:55] My grandmother loved this Husayniya.
[00:10:59] She often went there. Sometimes she would take me
[00:11:01] there too. Allahu Ahad, Allahu
[00:11:04] al-Samad, Allahu al-Samad, lam yalid,
[00:11:16] I started praying like
[00:11:19] them and learned to pray and
[00:11:22] fasted, and until the age of fourteen or fifteen,
[00:11:26] I continued in these fields.
[00:12:09] This element of the so-called sacred
[00:12:12] and theology and such was in my blood. That's why I
[00:12:16] went towards philosophy, to
[00:12:43] شدم. پدرمم یه سنتور خیلی بزرگی داشت.
[00:12:46] اولین کسی بود که منو تشویق کرد که بیام سنتور بزنم و
[00:12:50] من از ۱۰ سالگی دیگه سنتور زن شده
[00:12:53] بودم. دیگه نوتا رو می گرفت. من از رو اونا کار می کردم و خیلی
[00:12:57] علاقه مند بودم به موسیقی کلاسیک دیگه رفتم
[00:13:01] تو فاز اینکه رهبر ارکستر بشم و فلان خودمو تو
[00:13:04] خیال می دیدم تو خیال می دیدم شدم رهبر ارکسر سمفونیک.
[00:13:37] It was in this mood and basis that I became acquainted
[00:13:40] with cinema for the first time. I watched
[00:13:44] a variety of films that great artists
[00:13:47] had made, and later I realized what cinema
[00:13:51] actually is.
[00:13:55] I was looking for a university where
[00:13:58] I could study cinema. I discovered
[00:14:02] that in America, especially in California,
[00:14:05] there are two universities that teach cinema.
[00:14:55] I was in America when all the films
[00:14:58] came to Los Angeles. Anyway, it was Hollywood,
[00:15:02] so they showed them in different cinemas, and I was more
[00:15:06] captivated by European
[00:15:08] cinema.
[00:15:12] For example, I had invited him there where he was teaching,
[00:15:16] and I attended one of his classes. I learned
[00:15:19] a lot from him. Since I was very
[00:15:23] interested in philosophy on the other hand,
[00:15:27] I decided to major in philosophy. My
[00:15:30] biggest love was being a modernist. That
[00:15:33] is, I was very influenced by Jean-Paul Sartre
[00:15:36] and Camus and existentialism. And the best
[00:15:40] so-called courses that I took and really
[00:15:43] loved were these classes. Well, this book,
[00:15:46] Mr.
[00:15:47] Human
[00:15:50] and
[00:15:52] Jung.
[00:15:57] These are
[00:15:59] the plays, the lesson of
[00:16:02] the singer, the singer
[00:16:05] of fate, this important book.
[00:16:15] He predicted that all these people would later become Lenin,
[00:16:18] Khrushchev, Stalin. Kill this one,
[00:16:21] kill that one, kill that one, massacre this one, move
[00:16:25] this one from here to there because you want to give
[00:16:28] human happiness. This is human
[00:16:32] happiness by killing them, by shedding
[00:16:35] blood. Read Camus, read Sartre.
[00:16:38] We came wanting to save the world, we are killing everyone.
[00:16:42] What everyone is doing is making mistakes.
[00:16:45] Sir, what do you want to do with these bombs? Drop
[00:16:49] them on their heads, drop four on your
[00:16:52] head. You want to destroy the world. This is
[00:16:56] human loyalty to that primary cell
[00:16:59] that divided and brought life
[00:17:03] into existence. It is a sacred thing that
[00:17:07] wants life to continue, to exist and remain,
[00:17:11] not to be destroyed. Destroying is
[00:17:13] easy. I'm
[00:17:15] very angry.
[00:17:18] Where is that holographic book I had here?
[00:17:21] These things I'm saying that I can't say, let
[00:17:24] them be in it too. The Holographic
[00:17:28] Universe has been published 65 times. I am
[00:17:31] amazed by the intelligence, by the
[00:17:35] cleverness, by the insight of the Iranian people. They are so
[00:17:38] eager for philosophy and thought and contemplation
[00:17:42] and ideas, not for
[00:17:45] bombs. What do
[00:18:01] you want a bomb for?
[00:18:18] After 34 years, we came back to Iran, and that's
[00:18:22] how I entered the field of cinema.
[00:18:35] "The Diamond 33", my first film.
[00:18:40] Which I made in 1967 at the age of 27.
[00:18:43] And the interesting thing was that before that,
[00:18:47] I had never made any film, not even
[00:18:50] a short film. And I was never an assistant
[00:18:54] to anyone. I learned cinema
[00:18:57] by watching films and reading and so on.
[00:19:01] We were all beginners and were just starting
[00:19:04] for the first time. I experienced
[00:19:08] all of that, and from that perspective, it was very
[00:19:32] I had in "Political Diamond", I just realized how
[00:19:36] much the issue and the
[00:19:39] screenplay are important in cinema. The
[00:19:43] main thing is always that initial five or six-line synopsis.
[00:19:56] The start of my banned films began with "The Cow".
[00:20:00] شد
[00:20:06] The last year I was at university,
[00:20:09] I published a literary magazine called
[00:20:12] "Pars Review". And they sent it
[00:20:16] to Iran for this writer, and it
[00:20:19] led to me being in contact with Sa'edi. We also corresponded
[00:20:23] with each other.
[00:20:25] When I came to Iran, when we met, it was
[00:20:29] as if we had known
[00:20:30] each other before.
[00:20:41] He actually told me, "Why don't you
[00:20:44] come and make this film 'The Cow'?" We worked
[00:20:47] on the screenplay together and...
[00:20:50] And then we presented it to the Ministry
[00:20:53] of Culture and Arts. Of course, they
[00:20:56] also had some issues with the script and
[00:21:11] When the officials of the Ministry of Culture
[00:21:15] saw this film, none of them understood what was going on. They had never seen such a film before.
[00:21:18] Iranian cinema was something
[00:21:32] film was
[00:21:35] banned for two
[00:21:41] years until I had a friend who was
[00:21:45] French. He had come to Iran and wanted to make
[00:21:48] a film here. He had made it and wanted to go back to France. I told him, "Please
[00:21:52] take this 'Cow' with you, because they won't
[00:21:56] search you here to find out what it is and what it isn't." He
[00:21:59] agreed and said, "Okay, give it to me." We
[00:22:02] went to the airport to see him off, and
[00:22:05] our hearts were pounding, fearing that they might open his
[00:22:09] suitcase
[00:22:12] and discover this film, and then they
[00:22:15] would take care
[00:22:19] of us right
[00:22:23] there. He received his suitcase, didn't look
[00:22:26] at it, left, and went. He sent
[00:22:30] this film to the Venice Film Festival, and they
[00:22:33] snatched
[00:22:35] it up.
[00:22:45] The articles that were written about
[00:22:48] this in foreign newspapers, I
[00:22:52] remember that one of the members of the Ministry
[00:22:56] of Foreign Affairs told me that your
[00:22:58] film is much more effective than the propaganda
[00:23:02] the Shah is currently doing. We were on
[00:23:05] the verge of entering a new civilization. It
[00:23:08] was very important for the government to show the world
[00:23:12] that we had progressed.
[00:23:14] In short, this caused them all to object.
[00:23:23] Now, in Venice, when it won the award,
[00:23:27] they started writing and so on. They then realized
[00:23:30] what we had
[00:23:44] down a bit and allowed
[00:24:16] They did something, they found a new momentum, and it can be said that historically...
[00:24:34] It was very free from a play called "White Dog" where
[00:24:37] I changed all the characters, I changed the dialogues,
[00:24:40] I completely changed its atmosphere, and we turned all of this
[00:24:44] into "The Postman" and the troubles the postman
[00:24:47] has with his wife, with his master in that
[00:25:04] was one of my very important films
[00:25:07] which again was stamped with the
[00:25:10] mark of triviality.
[00:25:20] It was banned for two years until we fought again
[00:25:24] and were able to release it.
[00:25:28] It went to various festivals and this was
[00:25:32] one of those films that
[00:25:33] brought me many awards.
[00:26:28] "The Circle of Mina" was one of those
[00:26:32] films that caused me a lot of pain. I spent
[00:26:35] six whole months trying to get its script approved
[00:26:39] just because of this issue of the blood-selling
[00:26:42] mafia and these drug addicts
[00:26:45] who supplied blood to hospitals, and
[00:26:49] it was often contaminated, and this really caught
[00:26:52] my attention. Then I moved on to making
[00:26:56] a documentary film, something to make people a little aware,
[00:27:22] written, called "The Dump", I saw that I could also
[00:27:25] use that, and we designed it as a feature
[00:27:29] film for its screenplay. However, when I started...
[00:27:49] This film was so famous that the Shah himself came
[00:27:53] to see it in his palace with all these
[00:27:56] doctors and other people who were there, and
[00:28:00] then they told me that after seeing it,
[00:28:03] the Shah had stood up and very angrily
[00:28:07] told everyone that if what he showed
[00:28:09] is a lie and not true,
[00:28:13] you should hand him over to Savak to prosecute
[00:28:16] him and so on. But if it's true
[00:28:20] and correct, then go and fix yourselves. What kind
[00:28:43] for 3 or 4 years, its fame spread a lot
[00:28:47] abroad first, and then in Iran too, it reached
[00:28:51] the time when many things were freed. "The Circle" was also
[00:28:54] freed at that time, and it came out on screen
[00:28:58] in the last year of the Shah's reign, and
[00:29:01] the revolution had started and so on.
[00:29:22] et donc l'autre premier prix execo est de minor
[00:29:25] cycle de Darius Meroui
[00:29:28] avec scénario egalement de Darius Meroui je rappelle que le
[00:29:31] premier. At that time, Khomeini was in
[00:29:35] Neauphle-le-Château. I was also in Paris
[00:29:38] because of "The Circle". They showed "The Circle" and
[00:29:42] gave us an award, and so on.
[00:29:58] We went twice and
[00:30:02] interviewed Mr. Khomeini. He
[00:30:05] was saying very good things.
[00:30:08] It was completely different from what
[00:30:12] happened later, very much so. We
[00:30:15] are coming to bring democracy and
[00:30:18] freedom and to make everything
[00:30:22] available to the people for free. And
[00:30:26] he was saying very sweet
[00:30:26] and good things.
[00:30:37] Then they would interview me and I would say,
[00:30:41] yes, this person is, after
[00:30:44] all, bringing about a fundamental transformation in our
[00:30:47] country. and
[00:30:51] this revolution.