[update below] [2nd update below] [3rd update below] [4th update below] [5th update below] [6th update below]
Saw this at an avant-première a couple of nights ago (it opens in France on Wednesday). The structure of the film is fairly conventional and one knows that it won’t have an unhappy ending—it is a Hollywood movie, after all—, but it’s riveting nonetheless. I was on the edge of my seat almost throughout. It’s a top notch geopolitical thriller. Before seeing the movie I of course knew that it was about the 1979-80 Iran hostage crisis but apart from checking Metacritic’s score (86: universal acclaim) and getting the thumbs up from a couple of friends stateside, I pretty much went in to the theater cold. In fact, I thought it was going to be about the fiasco of the failed rescue attempt in April 1980, which it was not. Now I happen to be fairly knowledgeable about modern Iran and closely followed the hostage crisis at the time, but will admit to having no memory of the “Canadian caper”—which is what the pic is about—or of President Clinton’s 1997 revelation of the CIA’s involvement in it (a news story that must have come and gone, and before I had full Internet access). Having seen the movie, I now know. And what a story. The movie is not an entirely faithful reenactment of what happened—and as one may read in this 2007 account of the episode (that should be read after seeing the film)—but that’s okay. Movies about actual events invariably employ dramatic license and distort the historical record in parts. The film does have a few implausibilities and anachronisms—and particularly in the dramatic airport scene at the end—, and I wanted to rewrite the historical introduction, but no big deal. The details—historical, cultural—are pretty good on the whole and Istanbul was the right place to shoot the pic (though perhaps Ankara would have been even better). One error, for the record: it is inconceivable that the American/Canadian women would have been able to walk through the Tehran bazaar—or anywhere in the city—wearing no head covering.
As it happens, today is the 33rd anniversary of the storming of the US embassy in Tehran. I was living in New York City—and through the entire hostage crisis—and remember the day well. Though my politics were solidly leftist—more so than they are today—I was indignant at the televised scenes that day from Tehran and remained so for the duration of crisis—though was also indignant at the wave of Iran-bashing in the US (e.g. the “Fuck Iran” buttons worn by more than a few on the streets of Manhattan) and acts of physical aggression against Iranian students—whose numbers were huge in the US at the time—, or those assumed to be Iranian (funny true story: American in a store menacingly asks a Middle Eastern-looking male in his 20s, “Are you an eye-rainian student?” Answer: “No, I’m Persian.” Response from American: “Oh, okay”). But the great majority of American leftists I knew—including close friends—declined to criticize, let alone condemn, the Iranian regime during the hostage crisis. Not that they endorsed taking the US diplomats hostage but there was no indignation; moreover, there was an effort to see things from the Iranian regime’s point of view, indeed to apologize for the SOBs. I was not on that page. And then there was the conference on Iran at the New School in the spring of ’80, where Mansour Farhang viciously attacked Mangol Bayat for her temerity in (gently) critiquing the Iranian regime in her talk. She was visibly shaken at the virulence of Farhang’s verbal assault. And no one on the panel or in the audience stood up for her. Seeing Farhang on 6th Avenue afterward, walking with his alpha academic male pals Edward Said and Samih Farsoun, I had a visceral moment of disgust toward the lot of them (though did remain a fan of Said’s through the decade). Fahrang naturally became an opponent of the Ayatollahs later on. I wonder if he ever thought to apologize to Ms. Bayat for being such an odious jerk that day. Oh well. Back to the movie, do see it if you haven’t already.
UPDATE: In the interest of balance here is a critique of ‘Argo’ by Iranian-Canadian journalist Jian Ghomeshi, that was just sent to me by a friend who was a Canadian diplomat in Tehran in the early ’90s (and where he met his wife, so his link to the country is ongoing). Some of Mr. Ghomeshi’s criticisms are well-taken, though I do think he is being overly sensitive. And it is not true that “there is not one positive Iranian subject in the entire story” (e.g. the housekeeper at the Canadian ambassador’s residence). As for his calling the 1991 Hollywood potboilier ‘Not Without My Daughter’ “a particularly racist film about the U.S.-Iran experience,” he is not wide of the mark here, though what I remember most about that one—apart from its general trashiness—was Vincent Canby’s review, in which he referred to the Sally Field character as the type of American, who, if she were a tourist in Paris, would insist on eating at McDonald’s. On ‘A Separation’ Mr. Ghomeshi may rest assured that this film has been seen by many in the West and that since Khatami’s election in 1997 and, above all, the 2009 Green Revolution, the prevailing image of the Iranian people in the US and Europe has been a positive one: of a people who are, in their majority, not anti-American or anti-Western, and who would like nothing more than to throw off the yoke of the ayatollahs and join the modern, democratic world.
2nd UPDATE: French reviews of the film are tops for the most part, with the expected handful that are negative (and the negativity of a couple are not political in nature). The contre one in Télérama—opposing the pour—is particularly inane. As for the spectator reviews on Allociné, they’re even better than those of the critics. Where I saw it (UGC Ciné Cité Les Halles) part of the audience applauded at the end.
3rd UPDATE: Journalist and author Michael Totten, who has reported from the Middle East over the years, has a good review of the film in City Journal. He says it may be enjoyed by Democrats and Republicans alike. I agree. He links to a couple of knuckleheaded leftist reviews of the pic that I had missed. I should say that I do not share Totten’s assertion that Hollywood films about the Middle East and terrorism have a “leftist bias,” and I make it a point to see all of them. The problem with Hollywood films on the region is simply that they’re bad, period. The best film on the Middle East and terrorism I’ve seen in a while—and that is fast-paced and action-filled—is ‘Labyrinth’, by Turkish director Tolga Örnek, which I wrote about earlier this year.
4th UPDATE: Brown University prof Shiva Balaghi slams ‘Argo’, calling it “Jingoism as history.” Ouch! (February 21, 2013)
5th UPDATE: Critic Kevin B. Lee writes in Slate that ‘Argo’ is “the year’s worst Best Picture nominee” and tells the movie to go “f—k yourself.” Strong language. Lee criticizes the film for what it isn’t more than for what it is. IMO he would be better off f—king himself. (February 25, 2013)
6th UPDATE: Adam Garfinkle weighs in on ‘Argo’ on his blog. He liked around 99.44% of the film, so he said, but the remaining 0.56% grated on him. His explanation, while overly long—as is his wont—, is worth the read (his critique differs considerably from those of Shiva Balaghi and other tiersmondistes). (February 28, 2013)
Arun with a View 
Yeah, I saw Farhang do a similar performance that year in Princeton, under the auspices of Richard Falk. Later, his friends all had to scramble to find him a job in America after the revolution he pimped threw him out. You can be sure he never apologized to anyone.
I seem to remember from the time that Farhang was already a naturalized American citizen and professor at Bennington when he was named Iran’s ambassador to the UN (as he was identified this way in his many appearances on the MacNeil-Lehrer Report). But as he doesn’t have a Wikipedia page and the bios on the Internet don’t say much, I can’t confirm. But you know this kind of thing better than I do.
If you saw the film you will have noted the news clip at the end, of Sadegh Ghotbzadeh denouncing the exfiltration of the American diplomats, that he claimed violated Iranian sovereignty. Poor Mr. Ghotbzadeh proceeded to get whacked two years later by the state he so faithfully served. Talk about a revolution devouring its children.
Come to think of it, that New School conference may have been in the spring of 1981, not 1980. Farhang was still UN ambassador in spring ’80, I believe, and would not have attended such an event while an official representative of the Iranian state. There’s surprisingly little on the Internet on his UN stint, at least that’s readily accessible.
Really looking forward to it. Argo seems to belong to that class of high-quality movies that turn ‘real’ stories into a hugely entertaining narrative, like the Social Network, Charlie Wilson’s war or even Moneyball.
If you’re interested, here are three different takes on the movie by people who were involved in the crisis in various respects:
http://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/originals/2012/al-monitor/argo-obscures-hostage-crisis.html
http://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/originals/2012/al-monitor/argohenryprecht.html
http://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/originals/2012/al-monitor/washington-insider-reviews-argo.html
The verdict is more or less the same as yours: very good, with a few inaccuracies.
Scaramanga, thanks much for the links from Al Monitor, particularly the review by Gary Sick. Very interesting and useful!
I was pleasantly surprised. It works, and apart from some of the excesses that you have pointed out, captures the atmosphere reasonably well. Gomeshi did over-react; it was a particularly ugly time in Iranian history and even the ugliness captured some of the nuances, such as the guards questioning the residence maid. The Canadian role was downplayed, perhaps making up for the CIA role being unknown for so many years.
[…] And I also enjoyed some of the historical clips, particularly that of former Foreign Minister (and ‘useful idiot’) Ghotzadeh huffing and puffing about Canada’s violation of Iran’s sovereignty for helping the six escape, knowing that his usefulness over, he was shot a few months later (The Satanic Versus has some wonderful sections about revolutions eating their own …). For some good commentary about some of the ‘useful idiots’ in the West, see Arun’s blog, here. […]
This is a very late post…. Despite my intuitions, I not only went to see Argo, but convinced my wife to come along… Oh boy, what a great piece of “americanada !”, patriotic and all. Poor acting and loaded with so many absurdities ! You are exceedingly “bon public” ! In the early 80’s, I (also) have been a film director for tv commercials. Whenever I travelled location hunting anywhere in the world, just for a commercial, we would have been 3 (my producer, my assistant director and me) possibly 4 (add the director of photography), no one else needed except a hired local representative to deal with authorities and an interpreter-guide waiting for us at the airport, with expensive car rentals, big rooms at the local Hilton or equivalent, plenty of phonecalls everywhere at any time of day and night. Asking for the best places for food etc… Highly visible, arrogant, behaving like “we-are-in-the-movies-business” from arrival to departure ! And that was a mini french advert production crew, I have seen much louder american or british crews. I didn’t go into the details of how they did it for real, but I can’t believe that the Iranians could have been that dumb !
Massilian: Interesting your comments on the film. You’re the first person I’ve come across – save a couple of young Iranian-North Americans – who is critical of it. As for being ‘bon public’, I guess this would apply to even to the most refined cinéphiles who’ve seen the pic, in view of the stellar reviews it’s received. On not believing “the Iranians could have been that dumb,” the film, as one knows, was based on actual events. Some of the scenes were fictionalized – e.g. the walk through the bazaar, everything that happened at the airport – but the story really did happen! It’s not that the Iranians were dumb but rather that the CIA plan was particularly clever. In fact, I think the film showed the Iranian authorities to be more sophisticated and efficient than they no doubt were. As for the acting, I didn’t think it was bad.
Well, well… I can be mean with mainstream movies. That’s true. I have no problem with entertainment and grand public movies but I hate l’eau tiède, predictable stuff without ambition nor balls. Good enough movies. I can relate to movies that somehow escaped the director and went bezerk, bizarre and crashed. A disaster implies that there was ambition. The good enough stuff, sucks. I am too busy or too lazy to go into the real story of how that escape worked out in Teheran. I just can’t buy the promenade in the bazar, I can’t buy the maid’s story, I can’t buy the airport bit with the popping reservations or the canadian member of a stupid movie crew suddenly speaking fluent farsi and the Iranian mudjahidins not at all surprised and thrilled by the giant pictures of the storyboard ! and not thinking at all that the guy must CIA or similar ! All the while with hostages in the US embassy and a group missing… I think with this kind of story in a novel or a movie you must be very accurate. Just as with bank robberies stuff. Accuracy does it. The spectator can believe you. Otherwise you multiply effects, you shoot Robocop, Terminator, Rambo, James Bond, fantasy stuff. It can be pretty good and effective. It doesn’t pretend to be real. Argo is in between genres and not rigourous. Since it is “based on a true story” it should be more cautious with facts.
In my old heroic days (late sixties and early 70’s), there must be some kind of prescription now, I did perform a few stunts like the one in the movie. Getting people and stuff in or out of countries. Not for government agencies. It did require a lot of imagination and planning. We didn’t have CIA money either. Still, some solutions were indeed truly extravagant. “The Purloined Letter” principle, if you remember Edgar Poe’s story. I faced a situation where the 2 people I had to convey didn’t trust my “spectacular” options at all, they wanted a “plan B”. It was quick pick up outside a subway station. I had no time to park and sit in a café and convince them I knew what I was doing. They stayed behind. I got back safely. They got arrested. That was a long time ago. I guess they are retired white haired revolutionnary grand’pas now.
Massilian: okay, you were bothered by the scenes in the film that the screenwriter invented for dramatic effect, I (and just about everyone else) was not. That’s okay. But the bottom line is that the story was true and les grandes lignes of the film were accurate. And à propos, even incontestable chefs d’œuvres based on historical events have made up scenes, e.g. Labri Ben M’Hidi’s press conference in ‘La Bataille d’Alger’, which in fact never happened.
BTW, I’m looking forward to seeing ‘Zero Dark Thirty’, which apparently takes important liberties with the historical record. Early reviews have been stellar. On verra.