Director Shirin Neshat and actor Matt Dillon after the screening of LAND OF DREAMS at the Viennale 2021. Moderation: Neil Young.
LAND OF DREAMS
Acclaimed photo and video artist Shirin Neshat is known for her technique of combining handwritten poems in Farsi with her portraits of faces or body parts. Screened at the Venice film festival, her latest film is dedicated to the idea of inscribing the unconscious into the image itself.
LAND OF DREAMS sends Simin, a young woman of Iranian descent (Sheila Vand from A GIRL WALKS HOME AT NIGHT), through the prototypical sprawls of America to survey people’s dreams. As Neshat’s alter ego, she enters their homes and pushes her way towards the unspoken, as the film reveals some long oppressed fears and resentments, touching on racism and xenophobia. But the sceneries stay muted, dreamlike, grotesque (the screenplay is by longtime Buñuel-collaborator Jean-Claude Carrière)
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With its unsettling humor, nocturnal car rides, red-lit bars, and lonesome singers, it’s as if Jim Jarmusch and David Lynch had teamed up to fabricate a somber tale of otherness in the US. But Neshat has rooted these dreams in reality. Behind the activities of Simin stands an office with futuristic computer designs, the Census Bureau, that supervises the citizens for their “security”. An Americana as a nightmare. (Gunnar Landsgesell)
