Nazarbazi (the play of glances) is a film about love and desire in post-revolution Iranian cinema, where depictions of intimacy and touch between women and men are prohibited. Images and text come together to manifest the unspeakable and the untouchable, and to summon the current of desire.
After the revolution in 1979, Iran prohibited the depiction of men and women touching onscreen. Since then, directors have relied on every cinematic trick in the book to mirror the ecstatic release of tension through touch – but often it is the game of glances that is enough to set a scene ablaze. Nazarbazi collages these saturated cinematic moments into a poem about love and desire in Iranian film, that also echoes our own time of physical distancing.Read More »