prominent examples are A Time for Drunken Horses (2000, dir. Bahman Ghobadi), Mix (2000, dir. Dariush Mehrjui), Ten (2002, dir. Abbas Kiarostami), Women’s Prison (2002, dir. Manijeh Hekmat), and Crimson Gold (2004, dir. Jafar Panahi). The aesthetics of a bent cypress revived Iranian art-house cinema and gave it a novel artistic value. By employing an understated, metaphorical humanist language, Iranian filmmakers were able to maintain a more truthful artistic expression. It allowed them to stay present in the cultural scene. Their subtle yet uncompromising approach gave visibility to sociocultural issues. The curved sarv symbolizes the attitude toward artistic expression in Iranian cinema in the first 30 years after the revolution, while a social realist cinema with a more critical and explicit language emerged, from the 2010s onward.
An Outcry in Silence: A Hope for Heech/Nothingness
The Iranian auteur films in the areas of art-house cinema (with a more restrained and metaphorical structure) and social realism (with a bold and critical voice) have a common trait: They both communicate a deep-seated, ironic, and (at times) radical hope for heech/nothing. The idea of hoping for nothing, an irrational, faint hope in the midst of darkness, was already projected in Persian mystic philosophy and poetry, as well as the secular poetic discourses. Considering the profound connection between Iranian cinema and Persian poetry, it is no surprise that the concept of a poetic “hope for heech” has informed the Iranian cinema (see Sheibani 2011). Before analyzing the notion of a “hope for heech” in the cinema, the concept of heech or nothingness should be examined.
In the Persian language, heech means “nothing” and “nothingness.” However, in poetic and philosophical discourses (mystical and secular), there are multiple semantic implications associated with the concept of heech or nothingness. Nothingness does not necessarily suggest “death,” “destitution,” “annihilation,” or “non-existence.” In a mystic journey to find the Truth, reaching the state of nothingness means freeing the Self from the shackles of one’s ego, so as to transcend to the ultimate Truth. Mystics could only achieve wholeness (the state of Ensan-e Kamel or “perfect human being”), if their souls were cleansed from distractions, such as materialistic interests that retain the soul from embracing pure love. In the world of both the secular lover and a spiritual lover or Sufi, heech/“nothing” is more than “nothing.” “Heech is the ‘thirst,’ ‘enthusiasm’, and ‘desire’ to uncover the truth” (Pazyar 2018). Heech could also turn into an infatuation for someone or something, or a desire to be united with a beloved. The Iranian poet and thinker, Sa’di Shirazi stated that if the whole world is reduced to nothing, or to ruins, as long as lovers are united, that “nothingness” can turn to wholeness (Rubayee no. 10).4 In a similar manner, another prominent Medieval poet, Hafez, takes solace in drinking wine with a friend in a secluded shelter amidst the absurdity and nothingness of the whole world (Ghazal no. 298). Iranians found consolation and comfort in savoring the present moment, knowing that the tangible world, the whole universe, is heech/nothing, after all. This idea is embodied in the rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam (Rubayee no. 101). For Khayyam, nothingness is the point of union. It merges opposing sides, such as life and death (Rubayee no. 7), determinism and free will (Rubayee no. 5), and absurdity and desire (Rubayee no. 29). Heech, could mean the infusion of all and none that lead us to the hidden world, a domain beyond our comprehension (see Tadayon 2012).
Contradictory values exist in the juxtaposition between nothingness and wholeness. In the philosophical scheme of Sufism, it is indicated that “from nothingness, from silence, from darkness, existence was brought forth” (Michon 2006, 160). This is how the absent and present become one. Reaching the state of nothingness could lead the seeker to silence (as asserted in Rumis’s Ghazal 2219), to doubt, and to challenging the status quo. It leads an uncertain seeker to pass the realm of absolutism and to embrace the domain of non-absolutism. Celebrating heechness is an act of defiance, a form of silent protest.
Therefore, the concept of nothingness connotes diverse meanings in Persian culture. To have hope in nothingness is to have hope in emancipation, even in failing.5 For a nation that was repeatedly faced with atrocities, tragedy, and desolation, hope could emerge out of nothingness. This recalls Terry Eagleton’s concept of a tragic, radical hope emerging from ruin. The concept of hope for heech is similar to Eagleton’s formulation, according to which “the most authentic kind of hope is whatever can be salvaged, stripped of guarantees, from a general dissolution” (2015, 114). Hope for heech is gratifying because heech is not a flat nothingness (in a literal negative way). Heech is the point of integration of the contradictory elements of life and death, love and loss, darkness and light, and absence and presence. Attaining heech is the moment when the quest becomes more significant than reaching the goal, when desire takes precedence over the subject of love. There may be failure, but it is a graceful failure. So even if the ending is not happy, it is at least a transcendental moment that signifies the completion of a quest. In light of the merging of nothingness and wholeness, and a hope for heech, notions such as gratification in a search for an impossible love, and contemplation and acceptance of death become significant in Iranian films. In a similar fashion, the hope for heech makes the recurrent concepts of indetermination and non-absolutism notable subjects of Iranian films.
There are traces of hope for nothing in the New Wave cinema of the 1960s and 1970s, but over time, the concept has taken a more sophisticated and philosophical form in cinematic productions. This is both visible in art-house and in popular movies. The aesthetics of hope for heech, a shared value among filmmakers and filmgoers in the context of Iranian cinema has been represented in various ways, such as an infatuation with an impossible love and a thirst for union, death awareness, and even celebrating the end of life. In acknowledging the absurdity of life and the uncertainties surrounding humanity’s state of being.
In films such as Separation (2011, dir. Asghar Farhadi), Certified Copy (2010, dir. Abbas Kiarostami), Just 6.5 (Metri Shehsh o Nim, 2019, dir. Saeed Rustayi), African Violet (2019, dir. Mona Zandi Haghighi), Verdict (2005, dir. Masud Kimiai), and The Love-Stricken, an impossible or inconclusive love is portrayed. Separation pictures a world of divisions, separations, distinctions, and even connections that set borders between people. Farhadi masterfully challenges the juxtaposition of binary oppositions such as modernity vs. tradition, honesty vs. dishonesty, and secular mind-sets vs. religious attitudes. One of the least noticed binary oppositions that is represented in the film is love vs. lack of love. Simin and Nader are going to get separated as their paths get divided. But when Nader’s life becomes complicated and he gets arrested, the couple are temporarily reunited. It is a brief reunion that will shatter their daughter’s hopes for their reunion. The hope for heech in this film is a bittersweet one for audiences as well.
The Persian title of the film is Jodai-ye Nader az Simin, or Separation of Nader from Simin. The inclusion of the couple’s names in the Persian title is significant because the title of many romantic stories in Persian literature includes the names of characters. Nezami Ganjavi’s masterpieces such as Khosrow and Shirin, Leyli and Majnun, and Ferdowsi’s Rostam and Tahmineh, Siyavash and Farangis, and Gorgani’s classical romance, Vis and Ramin are examples of such stories. Stories that bear the romantic couple’s names in Persian have a particular appeal for audiences. Sweet moments of lovemaking in such stories are combined with disappointing instances of separation. Most romantic stories in Persian literature end unhappily or inconclusively. Iranian readers of classical literature know from the very beginning that they are likely not going to be rewarded with a happy ending, yet these stories are the most beloved in Iranian culture. Separation of Nader from Simin is a modern, and more pessimistic version of such stories. It bears the term “separation” in the title. The audience, right from its beginning, knows that this is a story of separation, not (re)union. The narrative does not describe the beginning of the romance either. In other words, it starts in media res (in the midst of the story), that depicts the bitter part of their relationship. Separation is the story of the termination of love. The spectators’ hope for heech is fulfilled by the raising of questions about the nature