No One Knows About Persian Cats

(IFC Films / Milan Records)

Film + Soundtrack Review by Adam McKibbin

Let’s be honest:  risk and rebellion exist in short supply in American music.  We’re talking genuine risk and rebellion, not “we’re packing more kids in this basement than the fire code allows” or “I just saw a guy do coke in the bathroom.”  In the Iran that is vividly depicted by Bahman Ghobadi in No One Knows About Persian Cats, bands are risking everything for their art.  If push came to shove, surely some American musicians would follow suit, clustering in soundproofed rooms for illegal concerts, living an artistic life on the run.  The list of bands that definitely would or wouldn’t still be at it… well, that’s an impossible hypothetical and, as with many impossible hypotheticals, a fun party game.  Would Sleigh Bells have ever formed if a mere rehearsal put them at risk of arrest?  Would Kanye West say George Bush didn’t care about black people if George Bush could have thrown him in prison for saying it?   

Persian Cats is an “inspired by actual events” sort of movie with a twist – in this dramatization, it’s many of the real-life people playing themselves, including our protagonists, Ashkan Kooshanejadh and Negar Shaghaghi, who are bandmates with benefits, though the extent of the benefits are left to the viewer’s interpretation.  The duo plays as Take It Easy Hospital, and their American and European influences are clear in their music, as well as their conversations (in one affecting scene, Ashkan talks of his ultimate dream of traveling to Iceland to see a Sigur Ros concert; a Danny Carey-admiring drumming buddy imagines a room of his own with a fridge full of energy drinks, leaving him free to drum, drink, drum and drink).

The music provides as much of a pulse as the dialogue – similar in that regard to Once.  There’s a concrete story at play, too, though it culminates in a flop of a finish that is the film’s lone Achilles heel.  Ashkan and Negar seek passports and bandmates in order to break out and find a more hospitable home to their burgeoning music career.  Befriended by a manic, charismatic bootlegger named Nader (played with panache by Hamed Behdad), they embark on a whirlwind through the city’s secret channels, meeting prospective bandmates and attempting to line up a permit for a show on their home turf prior to leaving Iran behind.  We are introduced to indie rockers and hip-hoppers and, in one of the film’s most memorable scenes, a metal band that has taken up residence in a cow shed.

Their kindred spirits join them on the soundtrack as well, which also provides a welcome and wide-ranging glimpse of the Iranian underground.  Stripped of context, there are several tracks that would have a hard time resonating, like Ash Koosha’s lightweight acoustic number “Chasing the Sun” and the fairly derivative metal track from the Free Keys.  The sociopolitical situation is never addressed overtly by the film, but the urgent hip-hop of Hichkas (“Ekhtelaf”) drives home some of those points; Daily Show fanatics may remember Hichkas from the show’s extended visit to Iran. 

Our stars, Take It Easy Hospital, contribute four tracks in their distinctive, keyboard-driven style – and they are some of the highlights, which is fortunate for both the soundtrack and the film.  Taken as a stand-alone, the soundtrack would be a little uneven, though that’s perhaps to be expected for a project that casts such a wide net.  As a companion piece for Ghobadi’s energetic and inspiring film, it’s pretty much perfect.