Interview. Jafar Panahi.

"Like his previous hits The White Balloon and The Circle, [Jafar] Panahi's soccer movie Offside is blatantly metaphoric and powerfully concrete, deceptively simple and highly sophisticated in its formal intelligence," writes J Hoberman, who also interviews Panahi for the Voice.

And as David D'Arcy notes, prefacing his interview with the Iranian director at the main site, "this time Panahi has added humor to the tenderness and poignancy of his earlier films."

"Perhaps because of censorship that limits what can be shown, Iranian movies are often propelled by argument, which Mr Panahi's restless camera turns into its own kind of action," writes AO Scott in the New York Times. "Denied official permission to shoot Offside, Mr Panahi went ahead under the pretext of making another, less provocative film. And he concludes with a remarkably exuberant sequence that doubles as a celebration of his own sneaky success."

Michael D'Angelo, writing for Nerve, suggests that ending might be called "Jafar Panahi's Block Party. Sexism may still be well entrenched in Iran, but it shrivels to insignificance amidst the euphoria of nationalism."

"Dissidence has rarely been such a kick," writes Stuart Klawans in the Nation.

"Recalling Fred Zinnemann's technique in High Noon, Panahi uses real time to structure the low-key plot," writes Eric Kohn at the Reeler. "The comparison is apt mainly because Offside debates Iranian values in much the same way that the classic western interrogates loyalties to American mythos." More from Jason Bogdaneris in the L Magazine.

"Panahi is no friend to the theocratic regime in Tehran, which has barred almost all his films from any domestic exhibition," notes Andrew O'Hehir in Salon. "Yet at this writing he can't get a visa to visit the United States either, despite the seemingly obvious propaganda value: We are the defenders of free expression, blah blah. I am shocked, shocked, to report that when it comes to genuine questions of liberty, the Bush administration and the Iranian mullahs are on the same side."

Dorna Khazeni has a longish talk with Panahi in the LA Weekly; Chris Wisniewski interviews him for Reverse Shot; and Jennifer Merin talks with him, too, for the New York Press.

Posted by dwhudson at March 29, 2007 11:59 AM