Dayereh (2000)

Director:

Jafar Panahi

Writer:

Kambuzia Partovi (writer)

Release Date:

8 September 2000 (Italy)

Genre:

Drama

Plot:

Various women struggle to function in the oppressively sexist society of contemporary Iran.

Plot Keywords:

Prison | Hospital | Bus | Iran | Abortion

Awards:

11 wins & 4 nominations

Cast

Nargess Mamizadeh	...	Nargess
Maryiam Palvin Almani	...	Arezou
Mojgan Faramarzi	...	Prostitute
Elham Saboktakin	...	Nurse
Monir Arab	...	Ticket Seller
Solmaz Panahi	...	Solmaz
Fereshteh Sadre Orafaiy	...	Pari
Fatemeh Naghavi	...	Mother
rest of cast listed alphabetically:
Abbas Alizadeh	...	Father of Pari
Negar Ghadyani
Ataollah Moghadas	...	Haji
Khadijeh Moradi
Maryam Shayegan	...	Parveneh
Maedeh Tahmasebi	...	Maedeh (as Maedeh Tahmasbi)

Directed by
Jafar Panahi

Writing credits (in alphabetical order)
Kambuzia Partovi		writer

Produced by
Mohammad Atebbai	....	associate producer
Morteza Motavali	....	line producer
Jafar Panahi	....	producer

Cinematography by
Bahram Badakshani

Film Editing by
Jafar Panahi

Art Direction by
Iraj Raminfar

Set Decoration by
Vajid Allah Fariborzi

Makeup Department
Hemasseh Malaki	....	makeup artist

Production Management
Abolfazl Laleh	....	production manager

Second Unit Director or Assistant Director
Ali Aghababai	....	assistant director
Fereshteh Sadre Orafaiy	....	assistant director

Sound Department
Ahmad Ardalan	....	sound
Sassan Bagherpour	....	sound
Mehdi Dejbodi	....	sound engineer
Mehdi Dejbodi	....	sound mixer

Production Companies

• Direction du Développement et de la Coopération (DDC), Département Fédéral des Affaires Etrangères (participation)
• Foundation Montecinema Verità (participation)
• Jafar Panahi Film Productions
• Lumière & Company
• Mikado Film
• Mikado Lumiere & Co

Distributors

• Arthaus (2001) (Norway) (theatrical)
• Artificial Eye (2001) (UK) (theatrical) (subtitled)
• Filmcoopi Zürich (2000-2001) (Switzerland) (theatrical)
• Mikado (2000) (Italy) (theatrical)
• A-Film Home Entertainment (2001) (Netherlands) (video)
• Golem Distribución (Spain)
• Madman Entertainment (2003) (Australia) (DVD)
• Primer Plano Film Group (Argentina)
• Transeuropa Video Entertainment (TVE) (Argentina) (video)
• WinStar Cinema (2001) (USA) (subtitled)

Also Known As:

Il cerchio (Italy)
The Circle (International: English title)

Runtime:

90 min

Country:

Iran | Italy | Switzerland

Language:

Persian

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.85 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono

Certification:

Malaysia:U | South Korea:All | Argentina:13 | Australia:PG | Chile:14 | France:U | Iran:(Banned) | Norway:11 | Peru:14 | Singapore:PG | Spain:7 | Sweden:7 | Switzerland:12 (canton of Geneva) | Switzerland:12 (canton of Vaud) | UK:PG | USA:Not Rated

Company:

Direction du Développement et de la Coopération (DDC), Département Fédéral des Affaires Etrangères

Trivia:

This movie was banned in Iran.

Movie Connections:

References La ronde (1950)

Third-world-feminist NORTH BY NORTHWEST

In Jafar Panahi's claustral feature debut, the brilliant central conceit is that being a woman in Iran is exactly equivalent to being the Wrong Man in an Alfred Hitchcock movie. In the movie's nameless Iranian city, the narrative baton is handed off from one woman to another, each of them missing an ID card, a chaperoning male, some form of social validation; without it, the long arm of the law winds around each woman like a python. Panahi's style--long, fluid takes that are at once bruisingly verite and dreamlike--buckles in the script's ingenious (and perhaps unconscious) major device: in this movie, women are a secret underworld with nodding, unspoken signals, just like hoodlums silently acknowledging one another in a gangster picture. There is no warm-hug sisterhood here, just the desperate mutual regard of the about-to-be-caught.

The honesty and unfussiness of the style of contemporary Iranian directors enables them to get away with stuff other artists might not, such as the ending of this movie, which, in a European or American movie, might seem thuddingly unsubtle. Here, it seems like the fulfillment of a nightmare--and it works because of Panahi's wittily blunt style, which is pitched somewhere between Iranian neorealism and Elaine May's MIKEY AND NICKY. And it works because of our constant recognition of the literal, physical courage of the movie: our glimpses of current state attitudes toward abortion, prostitution and corrupt police are so bald one marvels at Panahi's (and the cast and crew's) effrontery. Never has chador seemed less exotic and more evil--a manifestation of a terror of the beauty and pleasure of the female body that seems to engulf each character like a Cronenbergian plague. (The movie's wittiest touch is Cronenbergian, too: a woman character has a tic that gives her away to the cops--pregnancy-induced vomiting.)