“Argo” Is a Very Well Made Movie that Ultimately Left Me Cold

We went to see Argo last night, the new movie starring Ben Affleck that is based on Antonio Mendez’ book about his mission to rescue six Americans during the Iranian hostage crisis in 1979-1980. I went expecting to see a Hollywood thriller, and I was not disappointed. I was also pleased that there was no Iran-bashing in the film. If you haven’t seen it, here’s the trailer:

Ultimately, however, while the movie is very well-made, it left me cold, and not just because I knew the ending. (I have a vague memory of watching TV when the announcement was made that the six Americans had gotten out safely.)

I have both a personal and a professional interest in how Iran is represented in American culture. My wife is from Iran, which means my son is half Iranian, and so I care very deeply that the portrayal is accurate, that however it may be slanted politically–because all portrayals are slanted politically–it does not do an injustice to Iranian anything. Also, I am a translator of classical Persian poetry and so the question of how to present the history, culture and ideas of another nation, another people is one that I think about quite a lot. As I said above, I was happy that Argo did not engage in the Iran- and Muslim-bashing that is all too common in the United States these days, but I was very disappointed in the prologue that is supposed to provide a historical and political context for the film.

Granted, the movie is a fictionalized version of actual events, not a documentary, and so it is not fair to expect a nuanced account of what caused the Iranian Revolution. Still, there was one moment in the prologue, which is given as a series of storyboards, that I found truly disturbing. The prologue sets up the events of the movie by presenting, more or less, the Islamic Republic’s version of why the revolution happened. Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi is described as a corrupt and decadent ruler, completely detached from the suffering of his people. The narrator of the prologue talks about the meals he had flown in from Europe, for example, and also about how it was rumored that his wife, Farah Diba, bathed herself in milk. Whether or not this is true, the storyboard accompanying this rumor is a prime example of orientalism at its worst. The queen is shown in profile, beautiful and naked, standing in a tub full of milk, while her serving women, all wearing head scarves, wait on her. The image epitomizes every sexualized stereotype about the Muslim world that you can name and, to the degree that it is supposed to provide context for the film’s narrative, it does an injustice, frankly, to both pre- and post-revolutionary Iran. The image made me angry, but it was pretty much the only misstep in portraying Iran that I saw.

What left me cold about the movie, ultimately, is that it was nothing more than a suspense-filled version of a story I already knew the ending to. Aside from learning details of what happened that I could not have known at the time–and I have no idea which parts of the movie are true to the facts and which are not–I did not learn why I should care about this story other than that Antonio Mendez saved the lives of these six people. It is, of course, wonderful that he did, but the situation in which they found themselves was, and frankly still is, so full of opportunities for deepening our understanding of Iran and of ourselves, that I though it was a shame the movie stayed on the surface of the narrative the way it did. The Iranians in the film are not much more than two-dimensional characters, foils for Mendez’ ingenuity in executing his scheme; and with the exception of one brief scene, the Westerners in Iran engage in no introspection about the revolution that is happening around them and what their role, as representatives of this country, might have been in bringing it about. Obviously, this was not the movie Affleck wanted to make, which is fine; but the movie he did make is not one that I will carry with me as anything other than a wonderfully made, but essentially mindless entertainment.

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5 Responses to “Argo” Is a Very Well Made Movie that Ultimately Left Me Cold

  1. 1
    AMM says:

    I have to say I was very disappointed in the film.

    By using real names, it gave the impression that it was trying to tell a true story, rather than a James Bond-style caper. And for the first, say, hour and a half, of the film, it didn’t strain my “suspension of disbelief” too far, and I enjoyed it.

    But then it started throwing in plot twists that got less and less plausible, climaxing in that ridiculous scene on the runway as the airliner takes off.

    At that point, I felt conned and lied to, and when I did a little on-line research into what actually happened, I found that virtually every plot point in the film that could be easily checked, beyond the basic premise, was made up. It left me suspecting that those plot points that couldn’t be as easily checked were lies as well.

    Had the filmmakers made it clear from the beginning that this was a Hollywood spy caper only very loosely based on real events, with Ben Affleck as the superhero fending off hordes of savage Middle-Easterners and thick-witted US government officials with a hatpin, I would have gone into the theater with a different attitude and perhaps just enjoyed it as a bit of mindless entertainment. It was the pretense that this was a true story that got to me.

    Also, I felt that the Iranians, especially the Revolutionary Guards, were treated as a mass of undifferentiated bogeymen, whose motivations no Real Person (= USA-an) would have any interest in understanding, anyway. Since this is the view that has ruled USA policy towards and the Mainstream Media’s portrayal of Iran for the past 30+ years, I think I would have found it annoying even if the film had made no pretense of being based in reality.

  2. 2
    lightly says:

    As background to the events themselves. My brother was working in Paris months before the hostage situation. He told me that it was common knowledge in the French press and on the streets of Paris that Iran had sent people to Washington to warn them to get their folks out. Seems no one in Washington would listen to them. So, you know, there’s that.

  3. 3
    Robert says:

    To the extent that there was warning of the revolution, it was in fact heeded. The majority of American dependents and non-essential military and civilian personnel left Iran a few months before the revolution. (I was one of them.) In December of 1978, there were still about 44,000 Americans in Iran, and nearly all of them managed to leave the country before Khomeini took power; the hostages at the embassy were themselves seized in November, long before Khomeini arrived or the situation in the country as a whole became totally untenable for Americans. It is actually quite remarkable how little American exposure there was to the revolutionary paroxysm; on balance we saw the danger and got out in plenty of time.

    I imagine that the impression received by the French press and/or street had quite a bit to do with their proximity to and access to Khomeini himself in his last days of exile, and I wouldn’t be at all surprised to know that Khomeini (who wanted the US as a propaganda enemy but did not really want to go about slaughtering American civilians for the nightly news) gave out some vibes that the Yankees might want to look border-wards, but the majority of Americans in country were making preparations to come home by the time Khomeini staged to France.

  4. 4
    Alex S says:

    Well yeah the film was propaganda at its finest, not unlike the film 300. In 300 Iran is portrayed as a nation of savages that had slaves fighting for their monster of a king. In reality Iran had the best human rights at that time with the first charter for human rights in history and there is no record of slavery in Persia, unlike Athenians and Romans which both had records of having slaves and were barbaric in their treatment of them. From Argo, The Shah/King having food flown in by concord from Europe and his wife bathing in milk are both 100% untrue and intentional propaganda to demonize the late shah.

    The reality is both the media and our politicians are not to be trusted, it is the US govt, which supports and backs Islamic extremism and pushes to spread it in the world. In particular the USA covertly brought Khomeini and he betrayed the US. The US arms extremists and trains them as we see in their actions from Wiki leaks in Iraq helping train them how to torture prisoners. The agenda the media hides is the USA loves extremism and wants to negotiate with it and keep it as it brings poverty, corruption, instability and war. The real US aims for the region is to thwart them from living in Peace Progress and Human Rights, the chains the Middle Easterners and North Africans wear are forged by US politicians. Though we the people are too moral and uninformed to connect our politicians dots.

    So In the end, even Americans end up dying for our politicians crimes, which are based on deceiving Americans using the News and Hollywood and concealing important truths, so they effectively kill us while they hold their grip on both profits and power. Extremism helps our politicians strengthen Wall Street, Oil companies and Weapons manufacturers which benefit from the instability the USA implants in the region through extremism and propaganda. The USA is holding talks with the IRI because they love them and are trying to keep their extremism. Being Danish it’s easier to get to the truth as we are not involved in the cover up of the crimes of the USA, UK, France in the Middle East.

  5. 5
    Alex S says:

    For Laughs, Look up this American Comedian Bill Hicks, he passed away god bless him. He says, look if we wanted to know whether IRAQ had WMD all we needed to do was look at the receipts! So true, if they were not given the raw materials and manufacturing capabilities, those Iraqi flint stones were not about to be able to make it. Furthermore the USA was funding Khomeini it is well known and paying for the PLO to train an army of terrorists for him in Libya. The USA got betrayed by their own extremist Khomeini who they helped to bring to power.

    Carter increased the number of personnel at the embassy in order to help Khomeini Secure power and when he did, he screwed Carter. It is well known that Carter even sent over military personnel like Colonel Huyser to neutralize the Shahs armed forces, so the Embassy could help install Khomeini and his brand of extremism. The USA wanted extremism no matter how Anti-American in order to benefit from the suppression of the people of the region and the profitable wars that would come. Most people though I have to hand it to the News Media and Politicians can’t tell the forest for the tree’s.