Hollywoodian, as expected, and nothing else!

Rating: Null/10 (12 February 2013)

Hollywood is really skilled in taking a line and wrap it in a bundle of exaggerations, lies and distorted images to the point to direct the spectator to forget the main story. I don't really know whether the story of the film is on exact reality of those years or is a mere adaptation. It is a custom in Hollywood films that are made about Korean, Iraqis, Iranians etc. to show them semi-barbarian people with deformed ugly faces and childish sinister characters. This cliché is always used to conceal truth. For example, as far as I remember, this was the story of the American female soldier who was wounded in action and was arrested by the Iraqi citizens who kindly hospitalized the girl but Hollywood later made a film showing how heroic American commandos rescued the poor injured girl from detention of Iraqis! The film tries to fairly brief Iranian contemporary history, national government of Mosadeq who was toppled down by a US-backed coup and the tyrannical regime of Shah, but when it begins the story you are suddenly plunged into untrue scenes. Though today, after three decades, almost all Iranians, even those students who stormed and captured the US embassy, reject this measure as a breach of diplomatic norms and international regulations but on those days, just coming out of a brutal US-backed regime, almost all political forces who played a role in the social life - including nationalists, socialists, democratic forces, students etc. - supported the move as an attempt to show disagreement with US policies in Iran and the Middle East. The people who gathered in front of the embassy were not only thugs and ruffians but university students and middle class members who favored modernism, independence and freedom. In fact, the hostage taking happened in a revolutionary era where no political force had monopolized power. There was a challenge between progressive and reactionary forces. Therefore, portraying Iran as a country of "big brother" in those months is absolutely unrealistic. The more ridiculous was the scene of hanging a man from a crane that was too queer to be believed. Such hangings were practiced when the new power stabilized itself and this had not yet happened in 1980. In those months, Iranian society was a vivid and interesting scene of debate on every issue including hostage taking. Everyday, in public places, in universities, in city squares, people freely gathered to discuss politics, and this is far from the pictures you see in Argo. The film is full of errors concerning names, pictures, customs etc. For example, IRGC members have uniforms like Cuban soldiers and even have long hairs that remind us of Camilo Cienfuegos and Che Guevara rather than IRGC members who never wear long hair! In Tehran Airport, a big picture of Ayatollah Shariatmadari was mounted while Shariatmadari, a moderate cleric, had parted his way from extremists from the beginning and was almost hated by them. The emblem of the Iranian airline and airport is a comic combination of Iranian lion and sward (used as national emblem before the revolution) and a mythical motif "Homa". Airport personnel mostly resembled servants of Imam Reza shrines who are responsible for cleaning the shrine and its yard rather than airport staff. Many other errors and guffs are seen and listing them is beyond the scope of s short note. At any rate, this was a Hollywoodian film, another sign that American mainstream always fails to grasp the true essence of events and phenomena.