Quartile rating: 7/10 · 1 rating
Renowned Iranian director Jafar Panahi received a 6-year prison sentence and a 20-year ban from filmmaking and conducting interviews with foreign press due to his open support for the opposition party in Iran's 2009 election. In this film, which was shot secretly by Panahi's close friend Mojtaba Mirtahmasb and smuggled into France on a USB stick concealed inside a cake for a last-minute submission to Cannes, Panahi documents his daily life under house arrest as he awaits a decision on his appeal.
This Is Not a Film is a genuinely singular work — a director under house arrest using a camera to assert his existence and defiance against a government that banned him from making films. The very act of its creation is the subject, making it conceptually striking and irreducibly unique. The smuggling-via-cake-to-Cannes story amplifies its legendary status. Novelty is high because no other film occupies quite this space between political protest, meta-cinema, and intimate diary. The ending, as Panahi's neighbor takes out the trash during Nowruz fireworks erupting outside, is quietly devastating and resonant — a perfect, unscripted image of confinement meeting the outside world. Cinematography is constrained by necessity (iPhone, handheld camcorder) but used with surprising intentionality. Plot and acting are less applicable in traditional senses, though Panahi's presence is compelling throughout.