page_title: Dariush Mehrjui
section_title: Early film career 1966-1972
hierarchical_section_title: Dariush Mehrjui / Early film career 1966-1972
caption_attribution_description: Dariush Mehrjui (director), Houshang Baharlou behind the scenes in "Postchi" (Film), 1972.
context_page_description: Dariush Mehrju'i is an Iranian director, screenwriter, producer, film editor and a member of the Iranian Academy of the Arts.
  Mehrjui was a founding member of the Iranian New Wave movement of the early 1970s. His second film, Gaav, is considered to be the first film of this movement, which also included Masoud Kimiai and Nasser Taqvai. Most of his films are inspired by literature and adapted from Iranian and foreign novels and plays.
context_section_description: Dariush Mehrjui made his debut in 1966 with Diamond 33, a big budget parody of the James Bond film series. The film was not financially successful. But his second feature film, Gaav, brought him national and international recognition. The film Gaav, a symbolic drama, is about a simple villager and his nearly mythical attachment to his cow.
  The film is adapted from a short story by renowned Iranian literary figure Gholamhossein Sa'edi. Sa'edi was a friend of Mehrjui and suggested the idea to him when
  Mehrjui was looking for a suitable second film, and they collaborated on the script. Through Sa'edi, Mehrjui met the actors Ezzatolah Entezami and Ali Nassirian, who were performing in one of Sa'edi's plays. Mehrjui would work with Entezami and Nassirian throughout his career. The film's score was composed by musician Hormoz Farhat. The film was completed in 1969.
  In the film, Entezami stars as Masht Hassan, a peasant in an isolated village in southern Iran. Hassan has a close relationship with his cow, which is his only possession (Mehrjui has said that Entezami even resembled a cow in the film). When other people from Hassan's village discover that the cow has been mysteriously killed, they decide to bury the cow and tell Hassan that it has run away. While in mourning for the cow, Hassan goes to the barn where it was kept and begins to assume the cow's identity. When his friends attempt to take him to a hospital, Hassan commits suicide.
  Gaav was banned for over a year by the Ministry of Culture and Arts, despite being one of the first two film in Iran to receive government funding. This was most likely due to Sa'edi being a controversial figure in Iran. His work was highly critical of the Pahlavi government, and he had been arrested sixteen times. When it was finally released in 1970, it was highly praised and won an award at the Ministry of Culture's film festival, but it was still denied an export permit. In 1971, the film was smuggled out of Iran and submitted to the Venice Film Festival where, without programming or subtitles, it became the largest event of that year's festival. It won the International Critics Award at Venice, and later that year, Entezami won the Best Actor Award at the Chicago International Film Festival.
  Along with Masoud Kimiai's Qeysar and Nasser Taqvai's Tranquility in the Presence of Others, the film Gaav initiated the Iranian New Wave movement and is considered a turning point in the history of Iranian cinema. The public received it with great enthusiasm, despite the fact that it had ignored all the traditional elements of box office attraction. It was screened internationally and received high praise from many film critics. Several of Iran's prominent actors (Entezami, Nassirian, Jamshid Mashayekhi, and Jafar Vali) played roles in the film.
  While waiting for Gaav to be released and gaining international recognition, Mehrjui was busy directing two more films. In 1970 he shot Agha-ye Hallou (Mr. Naive), a comedy which starred and was written by Ali Nassirian. Mehrjui had said that, "After all the censorship problems with Gaav, [he] wanted to do a no-problem film." The film also starred Fakhri Khorvash and Entezami.
  In the film, Nassirian plays a simple, naive villager who goes to Tehran to find a wife. While in the big city he is treated roughly and constantly fooled by local hustlers and con artists. When he goes into a dress shop to purchase a wedding gown, he meets a beautiful young woman (Fakhri Khorvash) and proposes to her. The young woman turns out to be a prostitute who rejects him and takes his money, spending him back to his village empty handed but more world-wise.
  Agha-ye Hallou was screened at the Sepas Film Festival in Tehran in 1971 where it won awards for Best Film and Best Director. Later that year it was screened at the 7th Moscow International Film Festival. It was a commercial success in Iran.
  After finishing Agha-ye Hallou in 1970, Mehrjui traveled to Berkeley, California and began writing an adaptation of Georg Büchner's Woyzeck for a modern-day Iranian setting. He went bac
caption: Mehrjui on set of "Postchi"
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