Saye-haye Boland-e Baad (Tall Shadows of the Wind). 1979. Iran. Directed by Bahman Farmanara. Screenplay by Farmanara, Houshang Golshiri. With Faramarz Gharibian, Saeed Nickpour, Hossein Kasbian. Digital restoration. US premiere. In Persian; English subtitles. 105 min.
Based on a story by co-screenwriter Houshang Golshiri, this symbolic tale of villagers terrorized by a scarecrow they themselves have planted was banned for different reasons both before and after the revolution: The Shah’s censors, increasingly nervous during the volatile late 1970s, saw the film as an attack on Mohammad Reza Pahlavi himself. The ayatollah’s censors, setting down strict regulations after 1979, pulled the film from theaters after just three days because of its purported leftist sympathies, owing to a scene of a popular uprising involving red flags.