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Iron Island

A leadership lesson for Americans and Iranians

By PETER KEOUGH | August 23, 2006

3.0 Stars

IRON ISLAND: Censorship often makes for good cinema.

Filmmakers in repressive countries tend to think metaphorically, and they can achieve works more evocative and universal than any overt statement might be. That’s not to condone censorship, only to say that gems like Iron Island provide some compensation. In Mohammad Rasoulof’s initially coy, ultimately chilling allegory, a derelict oil tanker anchored offshore serves as a makeshift village for outcast squatters and also as an allegory for . . . modern Iran? . . . the world in general? Paternal Captain Nernat makes the rounds of the tenants, who include the requisite symbolic oddballs, and encourages everyone to be optimistic. But he has two reasons to worry: businessmen ashore want to evacuate the ship and sell it for scrap, and a penniless youth on board wants to defy tradition and marry a brutal man’s daughter. Rasoulof’s long takes of rusty bulkheads erupt into revelatory images, and his salty yarn becomes a lesson about leadership pertinent to Americans and Iranians both.

On the Web
Iron Island's official Web site: http://www.kino.com/ironisland/

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