Description
The House is Black; A Timeless Visual EssayAlthough Forugh Farrokhzad has only one film to her credit as a director, The House is Black was one of the most influential and controversial films of its time in Iran. The editing and visual composition of this documentary, which very much resembles Forugh's poetry, is the focus of this paper. Comparing her poetry and her film this paper will explore the ways in which she uses visual imagery to move beyond visual impressions. She has broken clichés and the norm not just by showing the darkness and horrifying reality of leprosy, but by looking past the ugly and finding the beauty, love and hope for the future - everything that has given meaning to the lives of those infected. In her poetry, relating words and arranging them in different ways conveys deeper meaning, just as Forugh's use of different techniques of montage to bring together different images conveys a meaning deeper than what each image is simply depicting. She explains that cinema is an idea which comes to life by thinking and speaking through images. The House is Black is a timeless film not only because it is a reportage of life at the leper colony in the northwest of Iran, but also because it is based on a thought: life in the leper colony as a metaphor for life in general. People don't need to have leprosy to be trapped; people live in the traps they have built with their own hands.
| Period | 4 Jul 2008 |
|---|---|
| Event title | Forugh Farrokhzad (1935-1967): 40-year anniversary conference |
| Event type | Conference |
| Location | Manchester, United KingdomShow on map |