Iranian TV series, Movies

Oct 18, 2010
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excellent thriller series i have been watching recently.
apparently based on true stories.
it's called Gando.
must watch.

i don't understand the negative ratings for the series.
it's well done and well acted and keeps you hanging in
there after each episode.
and the guy playing the fat iranian-american cia spy
speaks persian very much like me and is a great actor
so i especially enjoy watching him in this series :p
 
Oct 18, 2010
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848
gando gets a review from la times.

Imagine ‘Homeland,’ if all the heroes were Iranian. That’s ‘Gando,’ must-see TV in Iran

TEHRAN —
There’s something foul infiltrating Iran. To weed it out, elite operatives hunt in the shadows, deploying drones, social-media and old-fashioned gumshoe tactics in a quest to thwart spies and traitors.
These warriors are neither James Bond nor Jason Bourne, but Iran’s Revolutionary Guards Corps, the elite special forces unit that is regarded as a terrorist organization in the West. And now, they have their own TV show: “Gando,"a sort of mirror image of “Homeland.”
Since it began airing in June, “Gando,” which claims to be based on true events, has been must-see TV for more than half of Iran’s 82 million people as well as around 10 million viewers online, says Javad Afshar, the series’ director.
But it’s also become the clearest articulation of an increasingly dominant argument amid the saber-rattling between Tehran and Washington: that those in Iran who advocate for political engagement with the West, including the architects of the 2015 nuclear accord, are, at best, weak-willed and, at worst, traitorous and corrupt. It’s the hardliners who have the good of the nation at heart.

https://www.latimes.com/world-nation/story/2019-07-19/iran-hit-tv-show-gando
 

houmanbahal

Elite Member
Mar 27, 2005
25,421
887
42
I heard a lot about this one, and since its from Modiri, I thought I give it a try, where do you watch these stuff?
yeah man az Zob said, Iranproud (install add blocker to skip the stupid ads). start watching. watch atleast the first 10 episodes before you give up. its not bad.
 
Iranproud is the most garbage site ever. Full of malware, ads and a very suspicious bunch of scripts running in the background. I'd try to avoid that stupid site as much as possible but if there's no alternative you have to be armed with NoScript, Ublock or AdBlockPlus and pray to God your machine doesn't get fucked.

Hayoola is available on GLwiz too btw.
 

Zob Ahan

Elite Member
Feb 4, 2005
17,476
2,231
Watched "The Warden" (سرخپوست) yesterday. Half-decent movie. Not sure why they named it "The Warden" in English while it's called "Sorkhpoost" in Farsi. Well inspired by European movies of the same genre. Worth a watch.

Navid Mohammadzadeh is in it.
Where can you watch it?
 
Oct 18, 2010
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saw sorkhpost on glwiz.
hands down the best iranian movie i have seen in a very long time.
the direction was masterful.must see a couple of times to appreciate
all the fine details.
don't know why iran did not send this to the oscars,it would have been
a strong contender.

 
saw sorkhpost on glwiz.
hands down the best iranian movie i have seen in a very long time.
the direction was masterful.must see a couple of times to appreciate
all the fine details.
don't know why iran did not send this to the oscars,it would have been
a strong contender.

Because there have been many movies with the same setting and similar scripts made in Europe. Arguably they were better and based on more believable stories from WW1 and WWII era.

Sorkhpoost was a good movie for Iranian standards, but let's not forget what it's pretending to be. A European prison story.

The problem with films like Sorkhpoost is the woman. She can't be herself. She can't touch men. She can't be a woman. She has to contain herself in a script that screams for sexual tension.
 
Oct 18, 2010
6,271
848
Because there have been many movies with the same setting and similar scripts made in Europe. Arguably they were better and based on more believable stories from WW1 and WWII era.

Sorkhpoost was a good movie for Iranian standards, but let's not forget what it's pretending to be. A European prison story.

The problem with films like Sorkhpoost is the woman. She can't be herself. She can't touch men. She can't be a woman. She has to contain herself in a script that screams for sexual tension.
actually this was a very unique script compared to all prison escape films.
in this script we never even see the prisoner except for an extremely long
shot close to the end.

the director in this film is not interested in the escape and how it is done
unlike most prison escape films made before it,but the effect that is has
on it's characters.

the escape itself is just 'news' to the warden and the viewer.the director
instead masterfully explores the dual feelings of the warden.on one hand
he is a good warden who wants no escape under his rule(he is supposed
to get a promotion too which this news might just rule it out) and on the
other hand he has feelings for the prison social worker who has sympathy
for the prisoner and is actually backstabbing him.he knows if he catches
the prisoner he will lose the woman.his transformation from wanting to
catch the prisoner to the ending is beautifully told in the course of the
film.

as far as sexual tension i think it was done very tastefully.i did not expect
to see the warden and the social worker have any explicit erotic moments
in this film,that's not even plausible in a 'western' film in this situation(unless
it's a porn).but the director does give you implicit erotic moments when the
warden plays a love song while the social worker is walking out of the prison
and also when he is in civil clothing and the woman compliments him while
an airplane is taking off and we can not hear what they are saying but then
she leans over in whispers in his ears.and also in the sequence when he smells
the pen he got from the social worker.that's film making at it's zenith.

and last but not least the opening and the ending of this film is unmatched by
any iranian film.and what i like the best about this film is that mr. javidi did not try
to imitate any successful iranian directors at all.unfortunately most iranian
directors in recent years are trying to be either kiarostami or farhadi.instead
he chose to do a film with a very low budget in his own style and has created
a masterpiece that sets the bar very high for anyone to match.

now i urge you to watch the film one more time and appreciate it's beauty.
 
I don't disagree with you. I did like it. I recommended it first here myself (just scroll up and see!).

I just felt more could've been done with the film if it didn't have to adhere to the fucked up laws of Islamic Republic. The dialogues are also lacking. In a bleak environment of absolute silence and loneliness (an empty prison), you want the character to absolutely dominate the viewer's mind. Navid Mohammadzadeh is capable of doing that. Unfortunately the dialogues weren't.

The movie was overall satisfying though.