{"id":294,"date":"2007-05-31T17:29:24","date_gmt":"2007-05-31T21:29:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/deeperintomovies.net\/journal\/archives\/294"},"modified":"2010-11-26T13:56:03","modified_gmt":"2010-11-26T18:56:03","slug":"offside-2006-jafar-panahi","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/deeperintomovies.net\/journal\/archives\/294","title":{"rendered":"Offside (2006, Jafar Panahi)"},"content":{"rendered":"

It’s nearly halfway through 2007, and all the “new” movies I see have 2006 dates on them. Even Knocked Up<\/a><\/em> is ’06 according to IMDB. Film distribution is a funny thing.<\/p>\n

I don’t think anyone liked this except for me and maybe Jimmy. Disappointing, since I thought it was light and brilliant. Simple story, handheld camera, starts with a girl who totally fails to get into the soccer arena and gets led up the long steps to a holding area outside, high in the stadium, and left with some other nabbed girls.<\/p>\n

One girl ditches her escort on a bathroom run, one was with her friend whose father shows up asking for help, one’s wearing a borrowed military uniform, one is all cocky talking back to the guards, and one doesn’t even like soccer but came in memory of a friend who got killed at a game the year before. Closing credits reveal that the characters were all unnamed.<\/p>\n

Shot at the stadium itself, some shot during the actual game at which the story takes place, so mixing documentary and fictional footage in a Kiarostami \/ Makhmahlbaf style. These three guys are more interesting than the Mexican trinity of Cuaron \/ del Toro \/ Inarritu who the press likes to write about… but I suppose Through the Olive Trees<\/em> didn’t make Hellboy<\/em> bank and Offside<\/em> isn’t in a tenth as many theaters as Children of Men<\/a><\/em>, so why pay attention?<\/p>\n

Movie addresses its political concerns without ever getting heavyhanded, without giving this doomed sense, without letting the girls get beaten or mistreated, so it stays watchable, with a mostly comic tone throughout. Ends in a big burst of nationalistic joy, as Iran wins the game while the cops are driving the girls away and their van gets swarmed by a celebrating mob so everyone gets out among celebration and fireworks.<\/p>\n

Like all of Panahi’s films, this one was banned from Iranian theaters.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It’s nearly halfway through 2007, and all the “new” movies I see have 2006 dates on them. Even Knocked Up is ’06 according to IMDB. Film distribution is a funny thing. I don’t think anyone liked this except for me and maybe Jimmy. Disappointing, since I thought it was light and brilliant. Simple story, handheld […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[369,133,1169,134],"class_list":["post-294","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-movie","tag-2000s","tag-iran","tag-jafar-panahi","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/deeperintomovies.net\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/294","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/deeperintomovies.net\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/deeperintomovies.net\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/deeperintomovies.net\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/deeperintomovies.net\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=294"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/deeperintomovies.net\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/294\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5416,"href":"https:\/\/deeperintomovies.net\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/294\/revisions\/5416"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/deeperintomovies.net\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=294"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/deeperintomovies.net\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=294"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/deeperintomovies.net\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=294"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}