Into the Jaws of the Ogre (Dans la gueule de l’ogre) is the title of the characteristic movie debut from Iranian-French director Mahsa Karampour. Co-written with Maya Haffar, the documentary has a highway film really feel and is about Karampour and her very completely different brother Siavash, their bond, their experiences in France and the U.S., respectively, and the expertise of lifetime of displaced and exiled individuals.
Into the Jaws of the Ogre takes audiences on a music-tinged cinematic journey between Iran and the US, between previous and current, together with clandestinely shot footage from Iran. World premiering on Thursday, Could 14 within the lineup of ACID, the Cannes Film Festival sidebar run by France’s affiliation of movie administrators, viewers get to expertise the siblings’ discussions, struggles, hopes and goals.
“I can’t quite grasp the adventurous life of my brother Siavash, so far from my own,” the filmmaker explains in a synopsis for the movie. “While I have just become French and he is about to become American, far from our native Iran, we are searching for common ground.”
ACID basic delegate Pauline Ginot calls it “a film that makes us reflect on what happens to these young people from Tehran’s punk underground scene, once in exile. Through this story, familiar from The Yellow Dogs, the film explores another one, a more intimate one: the experience of exile – idealized, yet rarely acknowledged in the face of the hardships of exile.”
Certainly, Siavash was a member of Iranian indie rock band The Yellow Canines that was featured in Bahman Ghobadi’s 2009 docu-drama movie No One Is aware of About Persian Cats, which received the particular jury prize in Cannes’ Un Sure Regard part. Three members of the band and an affiliate had been killed in a 2013 murder-suicide.
‘Into the Jaws of the Ogre’
Courtesy of ACID
The movie was produced by Mathilde Raczymow of Les movies du Bilboquet, with assist from the likes of France’s CNC and Institut Français. Rediance is dealing with international gross sales.
Earlier than its world premiere, Karampour talked to THR concerning the lengthy journey behind Into the Jaws of the Ogre, the displaced expertise and the way the U.S.-Iran battle made its means into the movie.
What was the inspiration for this movie, your first characteristic as a writer-director?
Within the mid-2000s, I had simply arrived in France, and I very a lot needed to maintain a reference to Iranian society. I really like France. I’ve realized cinema right here, however the vitality of creation in Iran was one thing else. So, I needed to do my first movie in Iran, and I needed to inform our musical tales, as a result of music has been one thing actually vital in my life. I performed classical violin because the ’80s, and I’ve a bunch of tales about training music in a forbidden context, and I actually needed to inform them. After which there was this little brother that I liked a lot, who was in Iran and was changing into a stranger to me. I needed to reconnect with him. And it was his rising musical exercise that additionally turned one of many first parts that made me need to begin a movie. I [shot] the very first footage in 2007 or 2008, and also you see that within the movie.
After which, your brother moved?
Sure. When he went to the US, all the things stopped. I went to Turkey and began filming different underground Iranian bands there, however I couldn’t discover the identical vitality that I had with my brother there. After which the [killing] tragedy occurred in 2013 after our father handed away in 2012. I felt like my world was vanishing. My buddies left Iran, and I couldn’t hear the voices that I needed to listen to anymore. I felt we had been a technology that needed to reconstruct our nation and needed to have our voices heard. With all [that] vanishing, I had the massive anguish of being a passive spectator of a world that was disappearing. So I needed to [set] an act towards this disappearance.
‘Into the Jaws of the Ogre’
Courtesy of ACID
My brother and his [music] group had been recognized in Iran, and after they went to the US, we didn’t hear about them anymore. So I needed to movie what occurs to us after we go away our nation, and I needed to offer a voice to so many gifted individuals who went overseas. A lot of them needed to remain for 2, three years after which return to Iran, and so they couldn’t due to political or monetary issues.
So, I went to the US, and I discovered my brother, who had grow to be a sort of stranger to me. I needed to know this man who was actually acquainted and on the identical time, very completely different from me. And the motivation for the movie was to reconnect, discover a significant [bond] between us and have our musical tales filmed and documented.
So, how lengthy was this complete journey?
The method of the movie took 18 years or so. I used to be not making the movie all that point, and my materials was not that a lot. I had 56 hours of footage. I began to work with my producer in 2018 or 2019, and we began to put in writing the movie. I’d say that 95 p.c of my time was spent on writing, and after I began to edit the movie, I rewrote it within the enhancing course of. I began enhancing in 2023, after which we needed to search for more cash. It’s a really low-budget movie, and it took some time.
I discovered the low-budget really feel matches the underground music and filming we see within the movie.
Thanks. It emerged layer by layer. It was one thing fragile, and there have been so many ellipses, lacking elements. I needed to make the movie with these lacking elements, unstated stuff and unfinished stuff. And I spotted the movie is about all these unfinished issues – tales, songs, mourning – and the bond with my brother is a picture, a theme, within the movie that was very treasured.
Mahsa Karampour
Courtesy of Marie Guichzoua
How did you concentrate on telling private versus common tales?
My intention was to inform very private tales, however contact individuals elsewhere. This can be a very particular Iranian story, which makes it completely different from [other countries], however this common sister-brother story will really feel acquainted.
I additionally needed to inform the story of regular issues, equivalent to music. Sure, now we have had a authorities theocracy for 47 years, however individuals in Iran need to make music. I simply needed individuals to see a narrative on the identical degree, displaying that we share the identical codes. All of us see pictures on the tv that make us suppose that everyone in Iran is a supporter of the regime, earlier than the mass rebel. I needed to speak about politics extra not directly. I felt that I might inform a really private sister and brother story, and folks can really feel and perceive the political context, such because the battle, the propaganda, the songs, censorship and all the things.
Into the Jaws of the Ogre options a number of scenes the place you two go into “ruins” of various kinds, together with one in Iran whenever you two had been youthful. I felt that this theme of ruins was a recurring image. Are you able to speak about {that a} bit?
These had been the forms of locations by which my brother might discover inspiration to put in writing his songs. And through that interval in Iran when rock music was forbidden, in these ruins in Tehran, they performed forbidden live shows.
There’s Persian mythology and mysticism within the movie, and ruins in Persian poetry are very vital locations. Really, my brother makes use of the phrase on a regular basis – “kharabat.” It’s one thing very tough to elucidate in one other language. It’s a spoil that’s fertile. It’s a destroyed place by which you drink wine and connect with the divine. Additionally it is a spot by which you do controversial issues. It’s destroyed, and but it’s fertile, so it’s a sort of connection to the previous.
For me, “ruin” can also be a logo for this world by which we live. This spoil of all of the wars, Trump, Netanyahu and the ayatollahs, and all of the stuff that now we have in Europe, ecological issues, financial issues and younger generations who don’t have any hope. All people thinks that the Third World Battle will come, so it is a ruined world. However issues will not be hopeless.
‘Into the Jaws of the Ogre’
Courtesy of ACID
There’s a very well timed scene within the movie referencing the battle in Iran…
I filmed that final scene final summer season. We had the very first episode of battle in June. It was a really violent expertise for me, personally. I went to Armenia and acquired our mom there, and we got here to France. After which my brother got here from the US, and the household acquired collectively on this island in France. We needed the household to be collectively. And I assumed that this battle was not completed.
I filmed my brother swimming. I needed to movie him swimming within the Persian Gulf, however he can’t try this. However now we have the Mediterranean Sea right here in France. We don’t should be in a particular geography to inform our tales. I felt he ought to hold swimming, and we will play music collectively to bond. Now we have made a movie collectively. And if we will inform our little tales, it’s our means of resisting, and it’s our means of holding the Iranian story alive.
