The Circle (2000) Dayereh (original title)

Director:

Jafar Panahi

Writers:

Kambuzia Partovi (written by)
Jafar Panahi (idea)

Release Date:

8 September 2000 (Italy)

Genre:

Drama

Plot:

Various women struggle to function in the oppressively sexist society of contemporary Iran.

Plot Keywords:

Hospital | Prison | Prostitution | Abortion | Bus

Awards:

11 wins & 4 nominations

Cast

Nargess Mamizadeh	...	Nargess
Maryiam Palvin Almani	...	Arezou (as Maryam Parvin Almani)
Mojgan Faramarzi	...	Mojgan - Prostitute
Elham Saboktakin	...	Elham - Nurse
Monir Arab	...	Monir - Ticket Seller
Maedeh Tahmasebi	...	Maedeh (as Maedeh Tahmasbi)
Maryam Shayegan	...	Parveneh
Khadijeh Moradi
Negar Ghadyani
Solmaz Panahi	...	Solmaz
Fereshteh Sadre Orafaiy	...	Pari (as Fereshteh Sadr Orafai)
Fatemeh Naghavi	...	Nayer
Ataollah Moghadas	...	Haji
Abbas Alizadeh	...	Father of Pari

Directed by
Jafar Panahi

Writing credits
Kambuzia Partovi		(written by)
Jafar Panahi		(idea)

Produced by
Mohammad Atebbai	....	associate producer
Morteza Motavali	....	executive producer
Jafar Panahi	....	producer

Cinematography by
Bahram Badakshani		(as Bahram Badakhshani)

Film Editing by
Jafar Panahi

Production Design by
Vajid Allah Fariborzi		(as Vajihollah Fariborzi)

Art Direction by
Iraj Raminfar

Makeup Department
Hemasseh Malaki	....	make-up

Production Management
Abolfazl Laleh	....	production manager

Second Unit Director or Assistant Director
Ali Aghababai	....	assistant director
Fereshteh Sadre Orafaiy	....	assistant director (as Fereshteh Sadr Orafai)

Sound Department
Ahmad Ardalan	....	sound
Sassan Bagherpour	....	sound
Mehdi Dejbodi	....	re-recording mixer

Camera and Electrical Department
Ghogha Bayat	....	still photographer
Amir Karimi	....	assistant camera
Mehrdad Lashkari	....	assistant camera

Other crew
Ahmad Moradi	....	production assistant
Mehdi Samakar	....	title

Production Companies

• Direction du Développement et de la Coopération (DDC), Département Fédéral des Affaires Etrangères (participation)
• Foundation Montecinema Verità (participation)
• Jafar Panahi Film Productions
• Lumière & Company
• Mikado Film
• Mikado Lumiere & Co
• Tele+ (participation)

Distributors

• Arthaus (2001) (Norway) (theatrical)
• Artificial Eye (2001) (UK) (theatrical) (subtitled)
• Filmcoopi Zürich (2000-2001) (Switzerland) (theatrical)
• Mikado (2000) (Italy) (theatrical)
• A-Film Home Entertainment (2001) (Netherlands) (video)
• Golem Distribución (Spain)
• Madman Entertainment (2003) (Australia) (DVD)
• Primer Plano Film Group (Argentina)
• Transeuropa Video Entertainment (TVE) (Argentina) (video)
• WinStar Cinema (2001) (USA) (subtitled)

Also Known As:

"Dayereh" - Iran (original title)

Runtime:

90 min

Country:

Iran | Italy | Switzerland

Language:

Persian

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.85 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono

Certification:

Malaysia:U | South Korea:All | Argentina:13 | Australia:PG | Chile:14 | France:U | Iran:(Banned) | Norway:11 | Peru:14 | Singapore:PG | Spain:7 | Sweden:7 | Switzerland:12 (canton of Geneva) | Switzerland:12 (canton of Vaud) | UK:PG | USA:Not Rated

Company:

Direction du Développement et de la Coopération (DDC), Département Fédéral des Affaires Etrangères

Movie Connections:

Featured in This Is Not a Film (2011)

Third-world-feminist NORTH BY NORTHWEST

In Jafar Panahi's claustral feature debut, the brilliant central conceit is that being a woman in Iran is exactly equivalent to being the Wrong Man in an Alfred Hitchcock movie. In the movie's nameless Iranian city, the narrative baton is handed off from one woman to another, each of them missing an ID card, a chaperoning male, some form of social validation; without it, the long arm of the law winds around each woman like a python. Panahi's style--long, fluid takes that are at once bruisingly verite and dreamlike--buckles in the script's ingenious (and perhaps unconscious) major device: in this movie, women are a secret underworld with nodding, unspoken signals, just like hoodlums silently acknowledging one another in a gangster picture. There is no warm-hug sisterhood here, just the desperate mutual regard of the about-to-be-caught.

The honesty and unfussiness of the style of contemporary Iranian directors enables them to get away with stuff other artists might not, such as the ending of this movie, which, in a European or American movie, might seem thuddingly unsubtle. Here, it seems like the fulfillment of a nightmare--and it works because of Panahi's wittily blunt style, which is pitched somewhere between Iranian neorealism and Elaine May's MIKEY AND NICKY. And it works because of our constant recognition of the literal, physical courage of the movie: our glimpses of current state attitudes toward abortion, prostitution and corrupt police are so bald one marvels at Panahi's (and the cast and crew's) effrontery. Never has chador seemed less exotic and more evil--a manifestation of a terror of the beauty and pleasure of the female body that seems to engulf each character like a Cronenbergian plague. (The movie's wittiest touch is Cronenbergian, too: a woman character has a tic that gives her away to the cops--pregnancy-induced vomiting.)