Kat Halstead interviews Hana Makhmalbaf, one of the foremost Iranain auteurs from the legendary filmmaking family. Buddha Collapsed Out of Shame is released in cinemas on July 25.
LWLies: Growing up in your family do you think it was inevitable that you would go into filmmaking?
Makhmalbaf: There are different answers to this question. First of all, there are thousands of films made in the world every year. So there are thousands of directors involved in making them. Many of these directors have children. But we do not see all their children making films. So there is much more to it than being born into a family of filmmakers.
The other answer and more important one is that I love my father [Mohsen Makhmalbaf, Sex and Philosophy]. I first fell in love with my father then chose cinema. My father passed on his love of cinema to me. My father loved his job and brought this love and passion to our house, rather than keep it to himself he shared it with everyone in the family. Sometimes I think that if my father was a baker I might have become a baker too.
LWLies: How would you express these issues if you couldn’t express them through film?
Makhmalbaf: As an 18-year-old girl living in Iran under current conditions and having to bear with ideological, political and social pressures I have a lot to say. But I write most of them in the form of short stories.
LWLies: How did the title of the film come about?
Makhmalbaf: This title came from a metaphorical quote from my father, which meant that even a statue can be ashamed of witnessing all the violence and harshness happening to these innocent people and, therefore, collapse.
The other reason for choosing this title was that people think in a city where statues of Buddha exist that nothing violent could happen due to the innocence and sphere of influence of these statues. I wanted to show the contrast and irony of it and show the harshness and violence that has happened right under these Buddha statues, which are symbols of innocence and calmness. Not just because of the meaning behind the sentence but also most of the story takes place in front of the empty place of Buddha’s statute so I felt the title serves the film right in both ways.
LWLies: What inspired you to make the film?
Makhmalbaf: By showing a picture of Afghanistan today, I tried to depict the effects of the recent years’ violence on the country. So that adults could see how their behaviour affects the younger generation, the adults of tomorrow. If they get used to violence, the future of the world will be in great danger. A teenage boy in the film says: “When I grow up I will kill you”, as a child he has been through so much violence that it becomes part of his normal life. I think that a child’s real schooling come from observing and copying the behaviour of their parents or other adults around them. Bamian experienced one of the harshest massacres of recent years times, in which many men and boys were beheaded in front of their wives’ and mothers’ eyes. The irony is that even those who have come to rescue Afghanistan have destroyed it without the time to rebuild it until the next so called rescue group comes along to go through the same cycle of destruction and violence again and again and again. First, it was the Russian communists, then the Taliban showed up, and now the Americans. One was communist, the other Muslim and the last one either atheist or Christian. But they all had one thing in common, and that was “Violence”. This violence has been injected from three different groups into the culture and people of Afghanistan over and over so strongly that you can see it in their children’s play. The children in this country, unlike the American children who have learnt violence through Hollywood action films, have learnt it by witnessing the terrible atrocities that have happened to their fathers and relatives in front of their eyes in their own homes.
LWLies: How did you come up with the story?
Makhmalbaf: At first there was quite a poetic storyline. It was about the journey of a six-year-old girl, over the course of one day, who gets encouraged or, rather, instigated by the boy next door to go to school. Since she doesn’t have a notebook she sells their chicken’s eggs to buy the basic stationery, but her earnings are not enough to cover the cost of a pencil so she takes her mother’s lipstick to use instead. Unaware of the steps one needs to take to be enrolled in school, she gets rejected by every school on her way.
LWLies: How much of the film was strictly scripted, and how much developed as filming went on?
Makhmalbaf: After the first part of shooting was completed, that spring and during the editing I felt that the characters in the film were somehow incomplete. So I went back to my mother, ‘the scriptwriter’, and we started to work again on the plot and, eventually, started the second part of the shoot. The story that we see in the film expanded from one day to three different seasons; spring, summer and autumn.
LWLies: How did you go about balancing an engaging story with the political message?
Makhmalbaf: I don’t like politics, otherwise I would have become a politician. I think that enough is said in the media about politics so I’d rather not talk about it. Unfortunately today no matter what you talk about, people try to find some links with a political message. In fact my point in this film is to leave aside politics and its wars for a while and instead pay attention to those innocent children whose culture and future are destroyed as a result of violent conflict and the underlying politics.
LWLies: Why did you decide to use children to discuss such strong themes?
Makhmalbaf: Because this film is about the children and their situation. Although we see the history of Afghanistan in the film, I’m really asking the audience to take a closer look at what is happening to the children who have been brought up in this environment. It is a warning to all of us. What is more most of the films made are already about adults, and I did not see the necessity of using adults to tell a child’s story.
LWLies: Why cast non-actors and where did you find the children?
Makhmalbaf: I felt that the nature of the story required ordinary, local people who have lived and experienced those situations. I visited many schools in Bamian and its suburbs for my actors. I saw thousands of children and auditioned hundreds until I cast the few whom I felt best suited my story.
LWLies: They all give amazing performances how did you find directing the children?
In directing them I tried to take a different approach than usual. I tried to make it seem like a game to them. And you can see this playful theme in parts of the film. If there is a meaning to the film, it can be found behind these kids’ games.
LWLies: What do you hope an audience will take away from the film?
Makhmalbaf: Once a film is made my part as a filmmaker is over and the turn of the audience starts. I believe every audience creates the film once again whilst watching it. So there can be as many different views and meanings to the film as the number of people who watch it.
LWLies: So, what’s next?
Makhmalbaf: I have just finished this film and spent a lot of energy in making it. Now I am traveling to different festivals across the world with the film and recharging my energy from the audiences’ response to it. I am also working on a few short stories at the moment.
