This article explores the correlation between two of Bahram Beyzaie's films and Laura Mulvey's theories on the male gaze. The films in question are The Crow (Kalāgh, 1977) and Maybe Some Other Time (Shāyad Vaqti Digar, 1987). This article delves into the films’ narrative structures, revealing a subtle yet significant shift in the dynamics of power and gaze. Initially, both films appear to conform to conventional representations of male dominance, establishing a seemingly patriarchal landscape. However, as the narratives unfold, a gradual transformation occurs, subverting conventions of the male gaze. By employing Mulvey's framework, this article deciphers the interplay between Beyzaie's cinematic language and Mulvey's theoretical underpinnings, highlighting Beyzaie's role in deconstructing patriarchal structures and crafting a more nuanced portrayal of gender relations.

As part of the collective endeavor to explore the modalities and challenges of the narrative in the Persianate world, this article reconsiders Abbas Kiarostami's Close-Up (1990), a film characterized by a special cinematographic feature. While accounting for what appears to be a story of swindling and identity theft, Kiarostami keeps the viewer in a state of uncertainty about the nature of what he sees, blurring the boundaries between documentary and fiction, truth and lie, through particular narrative and cinematographic choices. Previous scholarship has focused mainly on the aesthetic implications of the staging and its effects on the viewer. The present study proposes a different type of analysis by discussing specific narrative devices from the perspective of cultural anthropology, with particular attention to the recurrence of the zāher/bāten paradigm, suggested as a cipher by Kiarostami himself early on in the film. The examination of the discursive and aesthetic mobilization of these notions brings to light a subtle game of back-and-forth between the desire to disclose deeper meanings and the will to preserve ambiguity and intimacy, allowing for “soft epiphanies” to arise.

This paper proposes an exploration of the films of Iranian director Asghar Farhadi. It employs a methodology based on textual analysis, focusing specifically on the structural design of his films and the focalization processes of his scripts. It shows how Farhadi’s work can be understood as a coherent research project with a uniquely solid model based on chronological linearity as a way to explore the violent breakdown of different emotional communities: families, marriages, groups of friends, etc. At the same time, it considers how all the focalization processes in his films are oriented toward two main concepts: knowledge (of the characters, but also of the audience) and pain (of living in a [narrative] world afflicted by meaninglessness).

This essay investigates the Iranian film ʿArus-e Ātash, directed by Khosrow Sināʾi in 1999, through the lens of gender studies. In doing so, it employs Claude Lévi-Strauss’ theory of kinship and elementary structures in order to create a context for the social structure of ʿashira as the prevailing unit of society among Khuzestāni Arabs of Iran. The significance of gift exchange as the predominant form of making alliances, as well as the position of women as the nucleus of these exchanges, is further discussed to shed light on the different socialization of male and female individuals in the ʿashira. Using Lévi-Strauss’ ideas in conjunction with the gender feminism of Kate Millett and Catharine A. MacKinnon, the study explores how women in primitive societies have the dual function of being the men’s property on an objective level as well as the means for alliance-making on a subjective one—a sign and a value at the same time. The essay concludes that men can also be considered as the victims of the patriarchal system since it creates a cultural image of men imbued with excessive masculinity that they may not be able live up to.