Q&A: The Patience Stone, Directed by Atiq Rahimi

• October 16, 2012
• Article

You have been away from Afghanistan for a long time, yet all your work is about Afghanistan. Tell us about your memory of Afghanistan, your childhood there. Do you have memories of the time when there was peace in Afghanistan?

The Afghanistan where I lived till 1978 was a fountain of peace, spirituality and dreams. One of the poorest countries in the region, it was still able to transform itself into a democracy, in spite of the prevalent social and ethnic inequalities that were part and parcel of the countries of the Third World. It is difficult to imagine today that even back then in 1963, we had three women ministers in the government, and the parliament was well-represented by political parties that had divergent ideologies. We travelled with the family to remote parts of my country, but what was interesting was that we travelled not only in space but also in time. We visited the splendid archaeological sites, plundered and destroyed during the war, but also encountered people, cultures and living ancestral and pre-Islamic traditions. The big cities were in the process of modernisation. The women were actively involved in politics, culture and the economy of Afghanistan.

You make frequent trips to Afghanistan. What has changed in Afghanistan since your childhood there?

On my return in 2002, just after the downfall of the Taliban regime, I found my country - destroyed and devastated. This devastation was visible not just in the cities and villages, but also in the spirit of the Afghan people, society and culture. I did not recognize this Afghanistan. 30 years of separation created a huge gap between me and my roots. Just like 30 years of war changed my country, 30 year of exile changed me too. I had now spent half of my life in another culture; I spoke a different language, a lived in another civilisation. The rift is huge, so is the hurt that it has caused.

Your first work - Earth and Ashes was a novel written by you that you later filmed. So is your second work. You wrote your first work in your native language and the second work in French? Why did you decide to write your second novel in French?Is it simply a question of mastering a language and being able to use it well to express thoughts and feelings?

I wrote the book in French rather involuntarily. In the beginning I was surprised that no Persian words were coming to my mind. More and more intrigued, I continued to write in French, hoping I would discover the reason...then I realised that writing in French allowed me to escape from involuntary self-censorship. One's mother tongue, by definition itself is sacred; it does get difficult to stray in one's mother tongue because it is with this language that you know the world, its limits, and its taboos. One tends to be modest while writing in one's mother tongue. While I was in exile in France, strangely, I could not bring myself to write in French, and since I came back to Afghanistan, strangely, I can write only in French. Is it because I am no longer nostalgic, which is indeed normal for people who live far from their homeland? You don't need grammar, norms and rules to write -  idiom is what you need!

In your film, you give voice to a woman's innermost feelings. Was it challenging for you to think like a woman?

In beginning, I only wanted to get under the skin of the man, this paralysed man who hears all, but is unable to respond. I wanted to tell what might be going on the mind of this man who had never allowed his wife to speak to him about her dreams, aspirations, desires or her pain. But while writing, something strange happened: it was the woman that came to me; she took over my voice, my pen as if she wanted me to speak about her and her alone.

I don't have pretensions to be a feminist or sexist. I speak of the woman as I would of a man. What is important is the personality and not the femininity of this character. The woman in my story is psychological case, she is melancholic, neurotic - she has many facets - and is influenced by two strong characters, her father-in-law and her aunt. As she says, from her aunt she learned how to live with men and from her father-in-law she learned the reason to live. From her aunt she learned how to be a woman; and from her father-in-law, how to be a person. Her aunt's training was corporeal and her father-in-law's spiritual.

Like all women, this woman possesses a body, a body with its desires, its dreams, fantasies, secrets... But the society, war, religion and tradition have turned this body into something lifeless, repressed, forbidden, injured...

How did you decide to cast  Golshifteh Farahani as the lead, and how was your experience of working with her?

I wonder if I would have made this film had I not found Golshifteh. The casting was a tough nut to crack. It is a difficult, audacious and risky role to take on. I met several Iranian and Afghan actresses, but when I met Golshifteh, I found that the character of my story lived in her. Before the audition, I was hesitant, she is beautiful, and I did not want her beauty to overshadow the narrative, but she convinced me that her personality, her art and her intelligence go far beyond her beauty. We started with work on her accent, as the Persian in Afghanistan is slightly different from the Persian as it is spoken in Iran. She adapted to our accent rather quickly. To direct her was sheer artistic bliss. We shared the same point of view on the character. She grasped the ambiguity of the character she played. I did not want to fall into the trap of portraying the despondency of the woman. She gave the character some dignity, a body - and a lot of  courage.

Has the film been seen by women in your country? Would you like to share the feedback you received from them?

The film was screened for a committee of Afghan filmmakers, as well as students of fine arts. Among them were many women and apparently they liked the film lot.

Raman Chawla

The Patience Stone screens at VOX Cinemas on Tuesday 16 October at 3:45 pm (Ladies-Only Screening) and on Wednesday 17 October at 2 pm.