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Googoosh: Iran's Daughter More at IMDbPro »

6 out of 7 people found the following review useful:
Recommended to all Googoosh fans, 19 March 2005

Author: Fadhel from Bahrain

*** This review may contain spoilers ***

A rather nice documentary about the life of Googoosh and her journey ever since her birth! The movie covers both her personal and professional life, and makes you truly understand why this artist is respected and appreciated by so many individuals.

The movie has been put together as a series of interviews done with artists, directors, professors, friends and family of Googoosh (Including Dariush, and her son Kambiz). Unfortunately, it does not contain any direct interview with the artist herself as she was not allowed yet to conduct any interviews at the time of the filming, which means that each person in the movie solely expresses his own opinion only. They also explain some rather interesting political issues and how it affected her career. The movie also contains short clips of her films, songs, and video clips that she did before the revolution, but unfortunately does not contain any footage of her debut back in 2000 in Vancouver.

Don't expect every part of the documentary to be nail biting, as it is rather long (158 minutes) and some parts do contain unnecessary information. Nevertheless, it was great pleasure for me to know more about this incredible artist thanks to this documentary.

3 out of 4 people found the following review useful:
Poorly Edited Film, 28 June 2006

Author: john-1525 from Ann Arbor MI

*** This review may contain spoilers ***

The strongest elements of this film are its interviews with Googoosh lyricists, her son Kambiz and fellow singer Dariush. There are some decent extra features, including 3 audio performances (accompanied only by stills). These are nice, but they don't save this awkward monstrosity from being mostly disappointing.

There is no narrative thread, no narrator, no theme. It is just a long stream of clips, with too much irrelevant material thrown in. Why does someone interested in learning about Googoosh need to listen to Hamid Dehbashi hold forth on the inseparability of modernizaton and colonialism? Why does a Googoosh fan need to hear Farzaneh Milani telling us that the veil in Iran was NOT imposed, just because there happened to be a few women in Iran who voluntarily adopted it before the revolution? If there is no choice, Farzaneh, the veil is imposed! This film cries to be edited for content.

Basic filming technique could be improved too. A lot of the short film excerpts are used again and again to no good effect and the filmmaker's quick burst repeat sequences of "telling" phrases from her movies are annoying. Most of the commentators interviewed are either pompous academics or political retirees. One longs to hear ordinary Iranians speaking plainly about Googoosh's impact on their lives. Farhad Zamani should have watched "Umm Kulthum: A Voice Like Egypt," a truly interesting and informative film by Michal Goldman about a great Egyptian singer, before attempting a feature-length introduction to this wonderful Iranian singer. This film is too long, too self-indulgent, too amateurish and too cluttered with kitchen-table analysis of the 1979 revolution; it needs, but does not have, a connected narrative of the life and work of Googoosh herself. Watch only if you have 2 1/2 hours to waste, low expectations and are such a big Googoosh fan that anything will do! I felt cheated

3 out of 5 people found the following review useful:
Taken from the Asian Reporter by Polo, 5 July 2006

Author: FirstRun from NYC

Still Iran's Daughter

Googoosh: Iran's Daughter A film by Farhad Zamani First Run Features, 2000 English & Farsi with English subtitles DVD or VHS, 158 minutes, $29.95 By Polo

I could humbly decline to speak. I should find me a savvy Teherani to help out — I would probably save myself from sounding dumb. Because this is hard. This is not just a gripping biography about Googoosh, a stage and screen icon doubtless as compelling to modern Iranians as Marilyn Monroe remains for us. This film also chronicles Iran's dizzying drive toward modernity, then the country's tortured tumble into an anachronistic theocracy. Farhad Zamani does all that.

Googoosh: Iran's Daughter is a difficult documentary. It takes work. In fact, it takes two hours and 38 minutes. Mr. Zamani's research is impressive. He says he sat through over 30 Googoosh movies, from her early days as a child actor to the heady days just before Shah Reza Pahlavi's fall. He personally interviewed 20 musicians and lyricists, professors and clerics, family and friends.

What emerges is a fascinating portrayal of a woman embodying something more than that uneasy mélange of star power and vulnerability that Western voyeurs witnessed in the arc of Marilyn and Elvis, Marvin or Janis. Googoosh is a proper noun, a verb, and an adjective. Googoosh, as person and phenom, meant as much to popular Persian culture as the Beatles meant to our generation. She set the standard, not by clever design in the way Madonna smartly packaged her own pop authority, but by the artist's immediate resonance with the aspirations of a rapidly evolving urban Persian society.

She broke so many rules. Maybe most of them. Whether it was Googoosh or her handlers, whether it was she or her act, is hard to say. Orthodox Shi'ia authorities made no distinctions. She was silenced. She makes no appearance in her film. The director, Mr. Zamani, makes it clear who was punished for Googoosh's public persona, for the pop culture that swelled around her act.

According to Mr. Zamani, the true beauty of the woman — whether we're talking about the public icon or cynically used public performer — is that she stayed. She could have run. She could've exiled the way many educated and most urbane Iranians did. She would've sung in front of steadily diminishing houses of homesick émigrés in Houston or L.A. But she stayed. And thus silenced for 21 years, she remains Iran's Daughter.

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