{"id":234,"date":"2007-03-29T15:06:26","date_gmt":"2007-03-29T19:06:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/jonesing4movies.com\/?p=234"},"modified":"2009-09-10T22:06:29","modified_gmt":"2009-09-11T02:06:29","slug":"offside-2006-movie-review","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jonesing4movies.com\/?p=234","title":{"rendered":"Offside (2006) – Movie Review"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/p>\n
<\/div>\n

\"Evil

Evil transgressor cross-dressing women thrill to a soccer match they aren't permitted to watch in Jafar Panahi's "Offside"<\/p><\/div>\n

Waiting for Gomorrah<\/span><\/em><\/h1>\n

[xrr rating=4\/5]<\/span><\/p>\n

Offside<\/em>. Starring Sima Mobarak-Shahi, Shaesteh Irani, Ayda Sadeqi, Golnaz Farmani, Mahnaz Zabihi, Nazanin Sediq-zadeh, Melika Shafahi, Safdar Samandar, Mohammad Kheir-abadi, Masoud Kheymeh-kabood, Mohammed-Reza Gharebaghi, Hadi Saeedi, Masoud Gheyas-vand, Ali Baradari, and Ali Roshan. Music by Yuval Barazani and Korosh Bozorgpour. Cinematography by Rami Agami and Mahmoud Kalari.\u00a0 Production design by Iraj Raminfar. Screenplay by Jafar Panahi and Shadmehr Rastin. Edited and directed by Jafar Panahi. (Sony Pictures Classics\/Jafar Panahi Film Productions, 2007, color, 93 minutes, in Persian\/Farsi with subtitles. MPAA rating: PG.)<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u201cMen and women are different,\u201d says a frustrated soldier to a young girl who\u2019s been questioning his authority in Jafar Panahi\u2019s lighthearted journey into fear, Offside.<\/em><\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

No kidding. It\u2019s why men are into Dodge Challengers painted Hemi Orange while women are enrolled in Oprah\u2019s Book Club. The last time I attended a Redskins game, at Philadelphia\u2019s now-demolished Veterans Stadium, I went with a young lady who just happened to be an Eagles fan. And, although you might call her a tomboy (she does), when she was finished swilling her Yuengling beer, she had to use the ladies\u2019 room. Because, after all, men and women are different.<\/p>\n

In Tehran\u2019s Azadi Stadium, however, there are<\/em> no women\u2019s restrooms. That\u2019s because no women are admitted anywhere in the stadium; only men are permitted to attend the sporting events. Because of the repressive separation of the sexes in the Islamic Republic of Iran, women wind up paying the price for men\u2019s rude behavior and lechery.<\/p>\n

The inspiration for this film, shot in \u201creal time\u201d documentary style, first germinated in director Panahi\u2019s mind a few years before it was shot, when he had an assignment of covering a soccer game. His preteen daughter begged to tag along, but he told her she wasn\u2019t permitted. Because he couldn\u2019t miss the game, he informed her that should she be turned away at the gate, she\u2019d have to return home alone. Though Panahi was unsuccessful at getting her in, she later told him that she managed to slip through. When he asked how, she replied slyly, \u201cThere is always a way.\u201d<\/p>\n

This movie\u2019s plot is rather simple: Adolescent girls disguise themselves (with varying degrees of success) as boys, in hopes of watching the Iranian national soccer team face off against Bahrain in a qualifying match that will send the winner to the 2006 World Cup in Germany. Although some gatecrashers slip by undetected, a half-dozen are caught by army soldiers and detained.<\/p>\n

Throughout this cinematic slice of life, when the girls are caught sneaking in, they are lectured by men that they shouldn\u2019t be around the male soccer fans, who might be acting loutish and shouting profanities, which could deflower the girls\u2019 virginal ears. One poorly-disguised young fan (Sima Mobarak-Shahi)\u2014whose features are far too soft and feminine to be taken for a boy\u2014offers a souvenir dealer (Mohsen Tabandeh) 6,000 rials for a ticket. He retorts, aghast, \u201cBut you could be my sister!\u201d When the girl offers him more, they strike a deal: Apparently, the going rate for the honor of the ticket scalper\u2019s sister would be 8,000 rials.<\/p>\n

Almost immediately she is apprehended by a soldier, who leads her over to a makeshift holding pen outside the stadium\u2019s walls. There she is held with five other girls. As they sit, stand, pace, and gripe behind the fence barricades, they cajole the soldiers to let them go, to no avail.<\/p>\n

But not necessarily because their guards are unsympathetic to their plight. The movie\u2019s paradox is that while the girls long to be on the inside, the soldiers would all rather be elsewhere. These captors are also captives, by way of conscription. Their dedication to duty comes not from love of country, but from the dread that their enlistments might be involuntarily extended should one of the girls slip from their grasp. One troop even gives a play-by-play rundown to the girls through an opening in the stadium\u2019s wall while he watches the action on the field. Panahi lets the viewer revel in the game from the same point-of-view as the girls\u2019, by proxy.<\/p>\n

Panahi\u2019s portrayal of fundamentalist Islam\u2019s oppression of its women is hardly oppressive; rather, he depicts their plight as a bureaucratic nightmare. Everyday life is absurdist theatre in today\u2019s Iran, where women cheer on their national soccer heroes at a game they cannot see. For them, breaching the stadium\u2019s walls is as vital as scaling the Berlin Wall was for East German dissidents a generation before. Ironically, though, these girls were brought here not by a spirit of rebellion against the Iranian regime, but out of patriotism, in hopes of witnessing their countrymen advance to the World Cup. Instead of land mines and electrified fences, they face stadium walls that have been thrown up by a dualistic philosophy that views women as simultaneously pure yet the source of temptation. Its practical result is the hypocrisy that women are to blame for men\u2019s uncontrollable lusts; thus, even the most commonplace, non-carnal pleasures cannot be shared with their male counterparts.<\/p>\n

A particularly amusing scene involves a soldier (Safdar Samandar) faced with the quandary of having to escort his female prisoner (Ayda Sadeqi) to the men\u2019s room to relieve herself. He cannot permit her entry because of her sex, so before she can enter, he rounds up the young men and herds them out of the restroom, causing a melee. As he shuttles her in, the guard orders her not to look at the graffiti spray-painted on the lavatory walls. \u201cCan you read? These are things too dirty for women to read. Don\u2019t read!\u201d<\/p>\n

Offside<\/em> is a comical and joyous window into contemporary Iranian life. Its best quality is that Panahi avoids heavy-handed political lecturing, instead allowing the ludicrous situation to play itself out to make its points. His script is full of biting witticisms, especially from the tough-talking, chain-smoking soccer fan played by Shayesteh Irani, who feverishly debates the guards, tripping up their faulty reasoning for not permitting women to view the soccer match.<\/p>\n

Panahi chose unknown actors to retain the film\u2019s documentary feel. Shot on handheld video rather than film, Offside<\/em> was made over a thirty-nine-day period, though many scenes were filmed during the actual game. This picture has an authentic atmosphere, mostly thanks to its street-smart dialogue, actual locations, and unobtrusive camerawork and editing. Despite uneven performances by some of the clearly-amateur actors, its characters seemed much more natural and believable than those played by professional A-list thespians in Sofia Coppola\u2019s stilted entry in the cin\u00e9ma-v\u00e9rit\u00e9<\/em> genre, Lost In Translation.<\/em><\/p>\n

Though its dialogue is mostly apolitical, Offside<\/em> was banned by Iran\u2019s censors. And though it has become a best-selling DVD on the Iranian black market, the film has yet to be shown there on the big screen. While Hollywood producers are quaking in their designer footwear at the prospect of revenge exacted against them, were they to portray the evil of Islamofascism, this little movie from inside the \u201cAxis of Evil\u201d gives cause for more than just hope. In Offside<\/em>, we get to see the face of evil up-close and personal. And these days, evil is looking pretty bored. It just wants its discharge papers.<\/p>\n

Robert L. Jones is a photojournalist living and working in Minnesota. His work has appeared in\u00a0<\/span>Black & White Magazine<\/span><\/span>,\u00a0<\/span>Entrepreneur<\/span><\/span>,\u00a0<\/span>Hoy! New York<\/span><\/span>, the New York\u00a0<\/span>Post<\/span><\/span>,\u00a0<\/span><\/em>RCA Victor\u00a0<\/span>(Japan)<\/span><\/em>,\u00a0<\/span>Scene in San Antonio<\/span><\/span>,\u00a0<\/span>Spirit Magazine<\/span><\/span>\u00a0(Canada),\u00a0<\/span>Top Producer<\/span><\/span>,\u00a0 and the Trenton\u00a0<\/span>Times<\/span><\/span>. Mr. Jones is a past entertainment editor of\u00a0<\/span>The New Individualist<\/span><\/span>.<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Waiting for Gomorrah [xrr rating=4\/5] Offside. Starring Sima Mobarak-Shahi, Shaesteh Irani, Ayda Sadeqi, Golnaz Farmani, Mahnaz Zabihi, Nazanin Sediq-zadeh, Melika Shafahi, Safdar Samandar, Mohammad Kheir-abadi, Masoud Kheymeh-kabood, Mohammed-Reza Gharebaghi, Hadi Saeedi, Masoud Gheyas-vand, Ali Baradari, and Ali Roshan. Music by Yuval Barazani and Korosh Bozorgpour. Cinematography by Rami Agami and Mahmoud Kalari.\u00a0 Production design by […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[38,45,37,3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-234","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-comedies","category-foreign-films","category-independent-films","category-mreview"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jonesing4movies.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/234","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jonesing4movies.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jonesing4movies.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jonesing4movies.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jonesing4movies.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=234"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/jonesing4movies.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/234\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":237,"href":"https:\/\/jonesing4movies.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/234\/revisions\/237"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jonesing4movies.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=234"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jonesing4movies.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=234"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jonesing4movies.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=234"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}