As a film critic and a journalist, it was a great opportunity for me to meet these great people from the other side of the world. But I really didn't expect to meet such friendly and lovely artists like them. 10 days living with them, brought me a new vision of life & art. All of them were so warm and respectful to us and now I have 9 great friends in the United States who are the most amazing people I've ever met.

After about 3 months working on this project, I'm not tired at all. I'm so excited of having known them.

Update: [Sid Ganis & Annette Bening talk about their trip to Iran | Hollywood Reporter]

My favorite characters are Don, his wife and Joan. And I really hate Peggy and Campbell!

Vicky... is about our ambition to have different relationships. There's a fact that nobody is satisfied of what he/she has, all of us like to have something we don't have. In relationships, it happens a lot. When you're with someone, you always think about other possibilities, and depends on your manner, it can make you a successful person in romance-relations or not. In the movie, Cristina is so curious and likes to experience different and new situations, but Vicky is totally opposite of her best friend. She is engaged to marry her fiance, who seems to be a ideal match. But in their summer trip to Spain, they meet a painter who ask both of them to date. Cristina likes the idea but Vicky doesn't...

I don't want to retell the story, you should watch it if you haven't yet, but the most important part of the movie is its end, while Vicky and Cristina are going back to NY, Vicky is with his man and with a fear of her marriage's future, but Cristina is looking for new men... but she stays alone at the end.
There's no way to say which one is better.

P.S. It's wonderful! Most of Iranian bloggers are so happy because of Obama's win. I don't know if this will change America-Iran relationships, but most of recent posts posted in Persian blogsphere are full of wows and congrats!
It's not usual at all! I feel so good of that.

P.P.S. What a small world we live in! I have a British/Iranian friend who told me today's election reminded her Tony Blainr's victory in 1997.

But this plot is not the reason I'm recommending you to watch Canaan, I want to talk about the way director has chosen to tell the story. Mani Haghighi (director) doesn't like to give lots of information on the main characters, and he prefers to inform you about their history during the story. Mina and her husband, have a close friend named Ali, who seems to have had a relationship with Mina before their marriage, but the story is not clear about that. We get that during a conversation which Ali is talking about a girl who left him to marry with an older guy, and this changed his life. But the movie is clear about Mina's ambition to Ali's lifestyle, who is poor, but hasn't changed during these years. In a scene at the beginning of the movie, she goes to Ali's home - when he is not there - and calms down for a while by walking in there.

And the end of movie is the best part of it in my opinion, because there's no ending in fact! Mina decides to stay with her husband, but he asks her to think more on this. The way she has decided not to leave him, is not that it should be. In fact the story is not about a couple's relationship, it's about our dreams, ambitions and the lifestyle we choose. There's nobody in the world who likes the way he/she lives and all of us are dreaming for lives we could have... Canaan is talking about this and there's no ending for this story.

P.S. The movie's title refers to an ancient city named Canaan.
P.P.S. Canaan is based on a short story by Alice Munro.

P.S. The only thing that concerns me is the fate of Golshifteh's last movie in Iran, a movie named "About Elli..." by Asghar Farhadi. Maybe it changes everything and the movie never gets the permission to be released. I hope it never happens.

P.S. +2 'The Fish fall in Love' is one of my favorite Iranian movies which I had reviewed 3 years ago. Golshifteh played a supporting role in the movie.

Life is getting exciting everyday! And of course my home is ready for your movie premiers and parties!

You know, in a country like Iran which no private TV and radio stations are allowed, IRIB has the greatest archive of images and videos. But it seems this company's archive department is not aware of its duty. And I guess it's impossible for anybody outside of IRIB to reach the archive files. The worst part is this.

Note. BBC gave the public full access to its programme archive couple years ago.

P.S. I wrote the same post in my Persian weblog and I received some interesting comments about IRIB's archives. So if you're looking for more read them.

At first, the most interesting thing on this tv hit, is New York. This city is a different one. Anytime I talk about New York - the city I’ve never been but I’m in love with it - I remind a phrase by Paul Auster who said, “A New Yorker is not an American!”
Anyway, I like to see stories in NY, like Friends. Besides, the stories about relationships, not sex, is the main reason that attracts me - and I guess, everyone. The 4 main characters are different from each other and they experience different situations. My favorite one is Samantha, not because of sex scenes that she’s expert on it, just because she knows what she wants. She knows her own desires and interests and does not waste her time on what she doesn’t like. But Charlotte can makes me angry in a minute! She thinks and lives traditionally and conservatively.

And the way Carrie tells the stories, has made them more attractive. I’m waiting to get Sex and the City’s movie to watch. I hope to see a good movie, and not a boring one like most of the films based on tv series.

p.s. I forgot to tell my big problem is using persian fonts in Mac, specially in photoshop and flash.

The beginning minutes of the movie – which was honored as the best foreign language movie at this year’s Academy Awards (Oscar) – portraits a serious intelligence service officer who believes in his job and duty, with no emotions and respect to humanity. So choosing him as the devil part of the story is the easiest thing you can do in the first 10 minutes. Specially when he sleeps with a prostitute and asks her to stay more beside him, nobody will feel sorrow for the police officer. But you will blame yourself for this at the end of the story! The policeman shows his real nature during the movie.

The story is so sad; thinking about the lives of people that are being wasted by some dictators is so annoying and watching a woman who sleeps with a government to protect her man, is not an interesting thing. But the hope and honesty you find in the main characters make you happy. When at the end of the movie, a colleague tells to the policeman about the Berlin’s Wall fall, and he leaves his job and goes out, you can feel how much he is happy. You can feel he has been freed. Even if you’ve known that a lot of lives have been murdered during those years.

At the first half of the movie, the writer plays a song for his friend who has hanged himself. After that he says to his girlfriend, “Can someone who's listened to this music, really listened, still be a bad person?”
And we know that there’s a police officer who has really listened to this music.

[Big Fish]