Salaam Cinema (1995, Makhmalbaf)

Alternatingly funny, harsh and sometimes downright cruel "Salaam Cinema" says a lot about the prevalence of cinema in our lives, whether we passionately follow it or not. In a scene within a makeshift audition studio, where director Makhmalbaf has gathered a handful of individuals from the literally thousands that show up in response to an advert calling for auditions (there is a stampede to get the forms at one point), Makhmalbaf pretends to throw an imaginary grenade at them and wants these people to react. All of them jump and pretend to die as if they had been in a war before. Its probably just them re-inacting scenes they've seen dozens, if not hundreds of time before on celluloid. The film is able to make such scenes seem both funny and absurd in the way that it tells us something about the average person. Many of the hopefuls are there either for money or fame or because they truly to believe they can act.

Granted, crying or laughing (and that too spontaneously) are probably not the only thing that acting encompasses and the naivety and gullibility of the subjects that show up (they all seem to be lower-middle class townsfolk) probably aid the director in no small measure. But if truth be told, the film's irony is that many who make the final cut that we see were probably never aware that the audition itself was the film. One such person is a persistent 16 year old with who Makhmalbaf spends perhaps half of the short running time toying with. He asks her to cry or leave, then choose between being humane or an artist. When she eventually breaks down, he tells her it was in reaction to her being told she would not be cast, not because she could cry when told to do so. A master manipulator, Makhmalbaf never answers the questions thrown back at him, and somehow continues to keep his control on both the situation and the people who turn up. In a display of supreme shrewdness, he asks the young girl who just refuses to be turned back to take over his duties at running the audition and to our surprise, she starts to emulate Makhmalbaf down to asking others to cry in 30 seconds or leave. The work of an actor is never easy, the work of a director more so.

Rating: 4/5