Break Down Cinema

Samira Makhmalbaf's drama film Panj é asr ( At Five in the Afternoon , Makhmalbaf, 2003) about a woman dreaming of becoming President in post-Taliban Afghanistan gets its title from Federico Garcia Lorca's poem 'A las cinco de la tarde' ('At Five in the Afternoon', Lorca, 1935), which the poet (Razi Mohebi) gives protagonist Nogreh (Agheleh Rezaie) to help her practice feeling confident with public speaking. Lorca's poem describes with haunting detail the scene of a bullfighter's gruesome death by a bull attack, painting a vivid picture of this death from the sound of flutes to the wounds' sun-like burning appearance. Each stanza constantly repeats the time the tragedy occurred as though it has traumatised the narrator. In an interview about Panj é asr , Makhmalbaf describes how she included the poem because she read it as a child, thinking it was about the bull's death and thought it beautiful because it conveyed this death as so significant th...

The following is a slightly edited version of one of my pieces of written coursework from my undergraduate university studies. I have posted it here with a slightly altered title alongside my later works for the purpose of showing the development of my academic research and writing skills. I wrote and submitted the original version of this essay for university coursework in 2019. Please keep in mind that my quoting any given author, critic, scholar etc. is neither necessarily an endorsement nor a disavowal of said person ’ s actions, statements, or views. Rather, it is solely to identify a particular viewpoint for the purpose of contextualising the discourse surrounding the text(s) central to my analysis. Content Warning: the film central to this essay features depictions of violence and occasional allusions to sexual assault and child abuse;  this essay  references  these scenes   solely  for analytical purposes. Readers who are likely to be distressed by these...