“The strength of the film comes most of all from Saeivar’s directing, an inspired and powerful combination of realistic observation and suspense techniques.”

The Witness marks Jafar Panahi’s first contribution to a film project since his incarceration in 2022 (two months before his latest film, No Bears, won the Special Jury Prize in Venice in his absence) for criticizing the Iranian government, and his jail release in 2023 following a hunger strike. Panahi is credited as co-writer, editor and artistic consultant on the third film by Nader Saeivar, who was himself the co-author of Panahi’s 3 Faces in 2018, and collaborated on No Bears. In The Witness, the two men keep on documenting the grim situation in today’s Iran, with a tale centered on the character of Tarlan, who is at the junction of all the present-day struggles of her country. She is a woman, a mother and a grandmother, a retired teacher who still participates in the union’s actions. Therefore both her public and her private life are under strict scrutiny from the patriarchy and the theocracy, leaving no true safe space for her and her female kin.

Tarlan’s troubles start when she becomes aware that her adopted daughter is the victim of acute domestic abuse by her husband. Not the type to accept such violent behavior, she tries to interfere, only to realize that every righteous intention and legitimate action on her behalf leads to more violence and threats by the other faction. The law is a scam, overridden by tacit and traditionalist dogmas that will always defend men over women, money over people, the existing order over individual rights and aspirations. The major part of the script of The Witness follows the character’s gradual and tragic understanding of this reality. Not that Tarlan was ever naive enough to deem her situation satisfying or secure; but she thought she still had a small degree of rights, and a little bit of leeway, as long as she followed certain rules and safety precautions. This belief, the revelation that it was inaccurate, and the dire consequences of this misconception on her part, make Tarlan the representation on screen of Jafar Panahi and other Iranian directors (Mohammad Rasoulof, for instance) who were similarly wrong about their true condition and paid dearly for it.

While some could say there is nothing new under the sun in this story, at least two things prove this presumption wrong and make The Witness strongly matter to us. First, its themes go beyond the frame of local politics and tragedy specific to one country. The vicious circle of domestic abuse, depicted in a sharp and uncompromising way by the film, follows the same pattern everywhere. Everyone involved understates what is truly happening to the victim, until it is too late; and when the worst has happened, part of the blame is put on her – “she had it coming”. This universal story is of course aggravated by the brutal nature of the Iranian regime, which does nothing to hide its antipathy towards women and everything to hide their bodies and faces. In its closing credits, The Witness explicitly links its fictional story to the Woman, Life, Freedom movement (that started in Iran in 2022 following the arrest and assassination by the police of several young women opposing mandatory hijab), with the hope it could lead the country in a better direction.

The strength of the film comes from its compelling group of actors (led by Maryam Bobani as Tarlan), and most of all from Nader Saeivar’s directing, an inspired and powerful combination of realistic observation and suspense techniques. Saeivar particularly excels in his use of the off-screen, which gives The Witness its most impressive and unsettling moments as it connects both aspects, suspense and reality. Indeed, Iranian citizens, especially women, must always be wary of what hides just outside of their field of view. Most, if not all of the time it is a menace or an ill-intentioned surveillance, as the film drearily exposes it time and time again.