My Name Is Negahdar Jamali And I Make Westerns
Directed by Kamran Heidari
Iran, 2012
Negahdar Jamali walks around a market place going from vendor to vendor looking for chicken feathers. It’s not a totally strange request, but when asked why he needs them, he explains that they’re for the “indians” in his newest western film. This answer is met with astonishment and the obvious follow-up question: “Who makes Westerns in Iran?” Indeed, transplanting a very American genre into the Iranian landscape, with Persian men playing cowboys and indians seems ludicrous, but perhaps no more so than Keanu Reeves playing the leader of 47 Japanese ronin. It’s when Negahdar explains what he loves about westerns that it becomes clearer as to how the western can fit into Iranian culture. He tells director Kamran Heidari that the hero in these movies comes from nowhere, no one knows his name, but he liberates the people by eradicating their foes with his side-arm because it’s the right thing to do. Then the hero rides off into the sunset – no one knows where he’s going or if he’ll ever return. It’s an alluring fairy tale, one of a magical bullet that solves all the problems, and Jamali tells us that few people in Iran are interested in such a story. They’d rather he make films about the Iraq/Iran war and the young men who lost their lives on the front line defending their country. This is just one example of the disconnect Negahdar Jamali has from the people around him.
At times, My Name is Negahdar Jamali And I Make Westerns can be very funny. Watching Negahdar and his friends is like watching children making a home movie in your backyard. The creative -albeit cheap- effects, the terrible acting, and the determination to make something special that only they will probably be able to truly appreciate, are all endearing qualities. After a hard day’s shoot, we watch the middle-aged men devour a meal in silence and then nap together on a blanket outside. They’re so cute at this age. However there is a sadness underneath all of it. Jamali’s spending all his money on making these movies, while his wife and young son struggle at home. It’s clear that this man-child has become too much of a burden for this woman to bear, and again we see Jamali’s disconnect from the reality around him.
An existential debate arises here, one that’s difficult to answer, if an answer can be found at all. Should Jamali continue making his art? That few will see, let alone value it seems inconsequential here, as does the apparent quality of his work. I’d argue that one can glean more entertainment, and even more cultural value, from five minutes of his micro-budget movies than the shiniest Transformers sequel. However his commitment to his work shows a lack of social awareness and familial responsibility. Negahdar Jamali rarely lets on to knowing the seriousness of what’s going on around him, most notably when he and his crew advertise a public screening of his latest film. People are afraid of going out at night, scared that such a gathering of people would make a great target for a bombing. His indifference doesn’t come off as a commendable act of defiance against terrorists, but just plain obliviousness. As people start to pack up in the middle of the screening, leaving only the men that worked on the film, Jamali is unconcerned – eyes fixed on the screen. Is this an artist? Does his work matter? These questions are raised but Kamran Heidari doesn’t pick a side of the debate. His camera and editing are fair and honest, showing the good and the bad of his subject, and even revealing his own manipulations as a documentary director. After Jamali lashes out at his son in frustration, the boy comes back to attack Kamran, who sent him in there to pester Jamali to begin with.
As to whether Negahdar Jamali is an artist, sacrificing for his work, I think back on something Francis Ford Coppola said in Hearts of Darkness: A Filmmaker’s Apocalypse(1991):
“To me, the great hope is that now these little 8mm video recorders and stuff have come out, and some… just people who normally wouldn’t make movies are going to be making them. And you know, suddenly, one day some little fat girl in Ohio is going to be the new Mozart, you know, and make a beautiful film with her little father’s camera recorder. And for once, the so-called professionalism about movies will be destroyed, forever. And it will really become an art form. That’s my opinion.”
Negahdar Jamali may not be the new Mozart, nor a fat girl in Ohio, but he’s perhaps Francis Ford Coppola’s great hope, and that’s more valuable to film as an artistic medium, regardless of the presumed quality of the work.