There is also an excellent article on Makhmalbaf’s life and cinema in the latest Cineaste. A highpoint of the essay is the way The Cyclist, which has long been one of my favorite films, is posed as a transitional film. Both formally and biographically, one can see Makhmalbaf caught between dialectics of past and present, faithfulness and criticism, hope and exhaustion in almost every frame of The Cyclist. From there, it is handy to see the way his cinema developed.
Here is a timely biograpical snippet from the article that talks often about the relationship between Makhmalbaf and Mousavi:
As Prime Minister, Mousavi, who studied painting and architecture, created arts initiatives to promote the revolution and Islamic values, which became the institutional home and provided the financial infrastructure for the internationally acclaimed Iranian cinema of the last two decades. These government and quasigovernmental arts agencies are where Makhmalbaf got his start as a director. Right from the start, politics and cinema were intimately tied together for Makhmalbaf; the camera was a tool of revolution. Today, Makhmalbaf still sees the radical potential of the media, calling the Mousavi protests a “cultural revolution and an internet revolution,” in a June issue of Variety. He goes on to say that, “All the students have become filmmakers now with their mobile phones.” The media, then, is a democratic weapon, opening the closed society of Iran, airing its dirty laundry. This impulse to allow events and new perspectives to alter his cinematic point of view mark his unique career.
Born to a lower middle-class and religious Tehran family, Makhmalbaf was active in politics from an early age. As a young anti-Shah militant in the Seventies Makhmalbaf formed a revolutionary cell dedicated to Ayatollah Khomeini’s ideals of nationalism and religious renewal. Makhmalbaf was arrested for attacking a policeman and spent two years in prison. His release coincided with the beginning of the new regime and Makhmalbaf began working to support it. With government support he formed a kind of ministry of propaganda designed to promote Islamic thought and the new state. Cinema of all kinds was banned at the start of the Republic, so Makhmalbaf had exclusive access to a whole library of films and was able to begin his cinematic education at a time when all the movie theaters in the country were dark. Under Mousavi cinema returned to Iran, but its revival was to be a means to Islamicize society. Makhmalbaf made his first films, in 1982, with this idea in mind.