From Tehran to London - Imprisonment comes in many forms

The saddest thing about From Tehran to London is that is unfinished as director Mania Akbari made the difficult decision to end production to protect her cast and crew and to leave Iran for London when film makers began to be arrested by the Iranian authorities.

At the most superficial level, From Tehran to London is a drama about a disintegrating marriage and illicit relationships. But the circumstances of trying to make the film infiltrated the story and atmosphere on screen and it is much more about the limits of self-expression and creative imprisonment.

Much of the film focuses on everyday activities that wouldn’t normally be on screen while the dramatic, expositional conversation surrounds it.   This gives it an effectively melodramatic feel and also adds to the claustrophobic feeling of the film.  It is this feeling that the film is particularly brilliant at drawing out.  We never leave the house and camera positioning always has a sense of how limited this space is.

The portrait of the marriage at the centre of the film begins by showing it a reasonably positive and playful light – it is clear that Ava expects a reasonable amount of personal freedom and self expression that is gradually shown to be being suffocated within the marriage.  The plot deals with several subjects that you would expect to be taboo in Iran, but I didn’t realise until the accompanying short documentary about the film that one of the Iranian rules being broken is that of showing someone dancing (in fact, originally not just Ava, but her maid Maryam would have been shown dancing, but the latter scenes had to be cut to protect the actress who remains in Iran).

Although unfinished, the film still manages to viscerally represent  life stifled creatively and emotionally.  Hopefully Mania Akbari will be able to make films with full creative freedom, wherever she now makes them.  To end on a positive note, in the Q&A she expressed hope that things will also improve in Iran following the recent elections, so she may yet be able to find that freedom in Iran soon.