Re: 197-199 Treasures from the Golestan Film Studio
Posted: Mon Oct 05, 2026 11:44 pm
Just finished up the documentary shorts on the disc and while The House Is Black is still my favorite out of all of them, I was genuinely shocked by how furious and angry the spirit of The Crown Jewels of Iran is, especially considering the fact this was made in 1960s Iran. A major aspect of that fury comes in the form of Golestan’s narration which rapidly becomes a barely-held in rant against the exploitation of the people in Iran done purely so that the Shahs could have some fancy items in their palaces. But I also found a lot of anger in how Golestan overlays his narration over unseen European tourists perusing the jewelry as they engage in meaningless chit-chat, ignorant of the history or exploitation that formed them. It’s a startling film in the context of the other, more innocent shorts in the set.
That sort of shockingly angry filmmaking is also seen in my third favorite of the shorts here, Harvest and Seed, initially beginning as a warm and slightly tongue-in-cheek look at a poverty-stricken Iranian village before (like The Crown Jewels of Iran) investigating deeper and deeper into the situation of this village to reveal just how awful the inhabitants are living. In a lot of ways it does remind, in structure, to Roy Andersson’s World of Glory as our friendly villager narrator guides into a hopeless realization that things aren’t going to get better for this people. However, unlike Andersson’s short, there is no way to distance yourself from its deadpan sense of bleakness by taking it in as just dark comedy because this isn’t a work of fiction, this is the genuine reality that not only these people are stuck in but possibly thousands of more villages are experiencing right at this moment. It’s kind of worthless to talk about this as a documentary because to me it rings much more like a call to action than anything else, one that is still unfortunately as prescient as it was 61 years ago.
That sort of shockingly angry filmmaking is also seen in my third favorite of the shorts here, Harvest and Seed, initially beginning as a warm and slightly tongue-in-cheek look at a poverty-stricken Iranian village before (like The Crown Jewels of Iran) investigating deeper and deeper into the situation of this village to reveal just how awful the inhabitants are living. In a lot of ways it does remind, in structure, to Roy Andersson’s World of Glory as our friendly villager narrator guides into a hopeless realization that things aren’t going to get better for this people. However, unlike Andersson’s short, there is no way to distance yourself from its deadpan sense of bleakness by taking it in as just dark comedy because this isn’t a work of fiction, this is the genuine reality that not only these people are stuck in but possibly thousands of more villages are experiencing right at this moment. It’s kind of worthless to talk about this as a documentary because to me it rings much more like a call to action than anything else, one that is still unfortunately as prescient as it was 61 years ago.