Film-maker Mehran Tamadon is preoccupied with the question of conscience, especially in contexts of extreme power imbalance. An Iranian exiled in France, he has made documentaries about the most fervent supporters of the Islamic regime, starting with Bassidji in 2009.
In 2012, Tamadon was detained by Iranian authorities for hours of questioning, and though he was subsequently released, he became persona non grata in his home country. Now the director has turned to the tools of film-making to try to lay out a path for a return. He gathered a group of fellow exiles, with whom he re-created the lengthy interrogation sessions they once endured. His hope was that that final film would stir introspection, and even empathy, in the hearts of their former tormenters.
This idea was, in truth, a naive one – as is his directorial approach. In the beginning, we see Iranian refugees take turns cross-examining Tamadon in various abandoned buildings in Paris. These role-playing scenarios, however, pale in comparison to the testimony of exiles, who speak of harrowing abduction and torture that unfolded over months, if not years. In contrast, there are no real stakes to the reenactment, which wraps up in a matter of hours.
Tamadon’s film only gains political heft when Zar Amir Ebrahimi, the acclaimed star of Holy Spider, joins the experiment. Her probing questions, delivered in character as an intelligence officer, expose the various ethical issues surrounding Tamadon’s practice. Not only does role-playing reveal little about methods of autocratic control, such exercises may well re-traumatise victims of state violence. Framed in intimate, handheld cinematography, the tense two-day session between Tamadon and Ebrahimi bristles with a taut energy and Tamadon commendably builds the bulk of the film on these critiques, turning My Worst Enemy into an act of self-interrogation. It becomes a work about failure, and ultimately the limitations of cinematic techniques in dissecting and analysing systematic abuse.
• My Worst Enemy is on True Story from 1 August.
