Reform Cinema in Iran: Film and Political Change in the Islamic Republic

Reform Cinema in Iran: Film and Political Change in the Islamic Republic, by Blake Atwood. New York: Columbia University Press, 2016. 280 pages. $30 paper.

Crowds of Iranian youth went to the polls on May 23, 1997, to cast their votes for Mohammad Khatami, the smiling, well-dressed, relatively polished, and eloquent cleric who stood for a platform of civil society and pluralism in Iranian society but within the established governing structure of the Islamic republic. His reformist message, eslah (reform) versus enqelab (revolution), resonated strongly within a society weary of radical revolutionary changes and coincided with the intellectual realization that change should come gradually from within for it to be effective and not harmful. Khatami's moderate policies also differed sharply from those of his radical opponents, who sought stricter Islamic rule. Thus, the moderate Khatami's all-inclusive and pluralistic message posed a stark contrast to the reactionary stances of the earlier decades of the revolution. He represented hope for the masses who desired change that differed in nature from what they had experienced in 1979, and yet a change that preserved Iran's Islamic republican system. Khatami's election as the president of the Islamic republic marked the first election of the revolution's reformists to the highest executive office, which deterred violent opposition to the Islamic republic and guaranteed the stability of the regime.

Blake Atwood's Reform Cinema in Iran seeks to flesh out the political intricacies of the reform era by analyzing Iranian art cinema. Atwood establishes an inextricable link between the culture of film and the political developments in Iran. While the official reform movement began...