A specialized panel titled “Narrative in Cinema: The Semiotics of Poetic Films” was held at Honar Shahr Aftab Cineplex in Shiraz as part of the 43rd Fajr International Film Festival. The session featured Bahman Namvar Motlagh, semiotician, translator, and university lecturer, alongside Hamidreza Shairi, linguist, theatre director, and literary and art critic.
At the beginning of the session, Hamidreza Shairi outlined the framework of his discussion, noting that he would approach the concept of poetic cinema through three key works: Michel Tournier’s novel “Robinson Crusoe,” Marcel Proust’s “In Search of Lost Time,” and Abbas Kiarostami’s film “Where Is the Friend’s House?” According to Shairi, these examples offer distinct yet interconnected ways of understanding how poetic meaning emerges through disruption, perception, and cinematic form.
Referring to Tournier’s “Robinson Crusoe,” Shairi highlighted a scene he described as central to the experience of poetic time. He explained that Robinson measures time through the steady dripping of water into a copper basin, until one night, while drifting in a trance-like sleep, the sound of dripping abruptly ceases. “Tournier draws our attention to the final drop,” Shairi said, describing how the droplet appears suspended between falling and not falling. Robinson waits for the sound to resume, but when it does not, he awakens and realizes that the drop has become elongated, luminous, and almost monumental in form.
Shairi noted that this moment marks a radical shift in Robinson’s perception of time. The flow of time seems to halt, disrupting his habitual way of measuring existence. In Shairi’s words, this scene revives a classical, almost mythical conception of time and exemplifies poetic transformation as a reversal of desire—from routine expectation to a state of rupture and wonder.
Moving to his second example, Shairi discussed a passage from Proust’s “In Search of Lost Time,” in which the narrator walks toward a distant celebration and perceives what appears to be a frozen stone palace. As he approaches, the structure gradually transforms into a crystalline palace, and finally reveals itself as a water fountain. Shairi explained that this gradual revelation unfolds in stages, producing a process of transformation and entanglement between perception and meaning. “Poetic experience,” he suggested, “emerges through this slow unveiling, as reality reshapes itself through proximity and attention.”
His third example turned to cinema, specifically Abbas Kiarostami’s “Where Is the Friend’s House?” Shairi pointed to a prolonged shot of a door, framed by the camera for an extended duration. Despite its apparent stillness and slowness, the image does not exhaust the viewer. Instead, he argued, the shot resonates deeply with the film’s thematic core and generates its own rhythm. The door, through its material presence and form, creates a bridge between the viewer’s unconscious and the external world, fostering a sense of endurance and contemplation.
Drawing on Roland Barthes, Shairi emphasized that poetic meaning does not reside in primary, literal interpretation, but in a second layer of meaning transmitted through the camera. Poetic cinema, he argued, makes signs tangible and places them in an existential relationship with the viewer’s inner life. What is not poetic, in contrast, is purely logical, causal, and argumentative narration. Poetic meaning emerges when departs from initial logic and allows another meaning to surface.
Shairi stressed that poetic cinema distances itself from fixed determination and convention, and that surprise plays a crucial role in its formation. “Nothing extraordinary needs to happen,” he said, pointing again to the simple image of the door in Kiarostami’s film. The most important sign of poetic cinema, he concluded, is the moment of surprise experienced by the audience. In such films, narrative processes are minimal, rhythm is gentle, discovery takes time, and the role of the director recedes in favor of events and perception. Ultimately, it is the camera that generates poetic meaning by forging a deep bond between story and spectator.
In the second part of the session, Bahman Namvar Motlagh focused on intertextuality and adaptation, approaching the subject from a broader cultural perspective. He argued that, in a general sense, all works are intertextual and adapted, as no text emerges in absolute originality.
Namvar Motlagh described adaptation as a valuable opportunity for Iranian cinema, particularly given the richness of Persian literature. Despite this potential, he noted, adaptation remains underutilized, possibly due to limited familiarity with its techniques and advantages. He emphasized that adaptation fosters cultural coherence, as different art forms borrow from one another and create an internal unity that becomes visible at the social level.
Discussing cross-cultural adaptation, Namvar Motlagh described it as a sign of cultural vitality. Such adaptations prevent texts from aging and allow them to be reborn, phoenix-like, within new contexts. Even critical or parodic engagements, he argued, contribute to keeping reference texts alive. Adaptation, in this sense, creates a space for critique, refinement, and durability, ensuring that significant works are identified and preserved.
As a concrete example, Namvar Motlagh cited Nasser Taghvai’s film “Captain Khorshid,” adapted from Ernest Hemingway’s novel “To Have and Have Not.” While the novel has been adapted multiple times in Hollywood, he described Taghvai’s version as the most successful adaptation, achieved through a process of localization. A first-time viewer, he suggested, may not even recognize it as an adaptation, as Taghvai remains faithful to the core theme while crafting a distinctly Iranian narrative shaped by local culture.
Namvar Motlagh concluded by reflecting on the relationship between genre and culture, arguing that every nation has its own dominant genre. “For Iranians,” he said, “that genre is poetry.” He observed that social poetic cinema has become particularly prominent in recent years, and that poetic feeling often arises from disrupting the ordinary flow of daily life. When rhythm accelerates or slows unexpectedly, pulling viewers out of habitual routine, a transcendent sense of poetic experience can emerge.
Running from November 26 to December 3, 2025, the 43rd edition of the Fajr International Film Festival in Shiraz brings together international filmmakers, critics, and audiences for a week of screenings, discussions, and cultural celebrations.
