Iran box-office hit angers hard-liners
Wednesday, May 5, 2004
By ALI AKBAR DAREINI
ASSOCIATED PRESS WRITER
TEHRAN, Iran -- It's a film that breaks plenty of taboos in clergy-ruled Iran: A convicted thief escapes prison disguised as an Islamic cleric; a man sings inside a mosque; a cleric robs a driver and sweet-talks and leers at a young woman.
Tehran director Kamal Tabrizi's award-winning Marmoulak - "The Lizard" - has angered many hard-line clerics, who want people to believe that they are immune from any criminality and that their prophetic robes are sacred.
But the film is getting a much different reaction from audiences - it has been a box-office hit in Iran since its release in early April.
Despite its extremely satirical tone, some clerics have been satisfied with the film's ending, in which the thief-turned-cleric undergoes a moral transformation by finding God. Even so, Iran's Culture Ministry, controlled by reformers, censored parts of the film but permitted the rest to be screened last month.
Hard-liners in Mashhad, a religious city in northeastern Iran, have banned the film in their city, while its imminent screening in Qom, known as Iran's Vatican city, is expected to provoke even greater clerical opposition.
The film depicts the fortunes of a thief, who breaks out of a prison hospital by wearing robes stolen from a cleric and discovers the benefits available to clergy in Iran, a Shiite Muslim state ruled by a hard-line religious establishment.
Trying to leave Iran illegally to Europe, protagonist Reza Marmoulak lands in a village near the Turkish border wearing the cleric's stolen robes. Waiting at the train station are a group of anxious locals expecting a cleric to lead prayers for elderly villagers. Not knowing the real cleric died in a car crash, they welcome the thief.
Marmoulak proves to be popular, capturing hearts through his simplicity and making fun of strict religious interpretations of Islam. During his short life as a cleric, he discovers God before turning himself over to authorities.
During the film, the cleric is shown robbing a driver, jumping over a wall to enter a house and openly saying that not all clerics deserve respect.
In another scene aboard a train, the would-be cleric ogles an attractive young woman, whose mother says she has been beaten by her husband and needs to be prayed for.
"You're so pretty," Marmoulak tells the woman. "Too pretty to need my prayers."
One filmgoer, 26-year-old Reza Houseinpour, said: "I have never laughed so much in my life as I did while watching the film."
"You don't expect to see a film making fun of clerics in a country ruled by clerics," said Maryam Nouri, a 25-year-old student who has seen the film twice. "The film shows many realities about bad clerics they have refused to acknowledge."
The film has had such an impact that it is now common to hear youths yelling out "Hey Marmoulak!" to clerics walking by in the street.
But the hard-line weekly Zan-e-Rooz, or "Woman of the Day," said the film encourages Iranians to disrespect clerics.
"To damage the sacredness of the respected clerical robe, there may be thousands of ways and Marmoulak shows the worst of them," the paper said in a recent editorial.
Iran's reformist movement has been stymied by the country's hard-line establishment, which has blocked efforts to enhance political, social and economic change promoted by reformist-backed President Mohammad Khatami.
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