You definitely know the owner of this picture; she is Margaret Thatcher. Thatcher is known among capitalists as the Iron Lady, but the workers of England and Irish freedom fighters have given her the nickname Attila and the Vampire Lady. Perhaps it is because of this dual image that when Peter Thompson, a professor at the University of York in England, wanted to introduce his strange phenomenon in the 1980s at the height of Thatcher’s power, he used an inverted image of Thatcher and named it the Thatcher Effect.

Now look at the picture again; do you see anything strange in it? It seems that the only strange thing about the picture is its inverted form. Now try to look at the picture directly. If your monitor, like mine, is of a type that can easily be inverted or if you are reading this on a laptop, the simplest thing to do is to invert the monitor or laptop. What do you see? Surely, like me, you are amazed.

For friends who are unable to rotate their monitor and see the image in normal mode; rotate the image, stick it underneath:

You see, truth is singular, but our perception of truth depends on our perspective. By rotating a picture and viewing it from a different angle, we receive a completely different impact.

When we talk about cinema and “documentary” films, naturally our implicit meaning is that we are expressing “evidence” and “documents” through images and sound; as if we are the eyes and ears of the audience to convey reality. But the truth is that we are looking at reality from the perspective of the filmmaker. Although from a philosophical and practical point of view, making a pure documentary film is not possible, there is a distance between making a documentary film that tries to show reality from different and comprehensive perspectives, and a film that claims to be a documentary but uses techniques to distort and twist the “reality” without necessarily telling lies or at least “white lies”.

In this note, which was supposed to be short, I do not intend to discuss techniques that can be used to tell lies without revealing the truth; I will only briefly mention a few points.

1- Music, or listening, can completely change our perception of a place. It can evoke feelings of joy, sadness, or nostalgia…

2- The angle of the camera can either give grandeur or belittle the subject, simply by placing the camera lower or higher than the person.

3- Editing and how to merge images together can create a specific direction.

This list can be continued and other items can be added to it, but these are enough to demonstrate how with filmmaking techniques, reality can be presented as a desired truth. These “formal” techniques, when combined with “content” techniques, result in amazing outcomes.

The most important content technique is to tell part of the truth and not tell the other part, and in this way, completely distort or manipulate the truth.

This lengthy introduction is for a short documentary about “Reza Shah” that was produced and aired on the television network “Mano To”.

Document of Reza.

Shah.

From.

Score.

Greatness.

Available.

Ast.

And.

That.

Benefit.

To take/carry.

From.

Photos.

“And.”

Film‌

Hi.

Archive.

With.

Quality.

Excellent.

Six films.

That.

Some.

First.

Bar.

Ast.

That.

At least.

With.

This.

Quality.

It is having.

Broadcast.

May.‌

“Shod” translates to “become” or “be.”

But this film, titled “Documentary”, is a very good example of how one can use formal and thematic techniques to manipulate reality and twist the truth without outright lying, and everything I say is a part of reality; a good breakdown with a bad combination!

Try watching the movie once with the sound off; even if you remove the music from the film, part of its positive impact will still be captured. For example, if you take out the music in the scene of “unveiling the veil” and replace it with sad music, the feeling that is evoked will be completely distorted and will induce coercion and dictatorship; not in the same way as with happy music, which evokes liberation and freedom, and of course the truth lies somewhere in between these two.

It is possible to interpret this very film with a little rearrangement of the film’s layout and by changing the music and dialogue, a film about “Reza Shah” in the documentary “Me and You” was made, portraying him as a “villain” and turning “God” into “Satan” and presenting “reality” in a distorted way.

Although in any case “film” is a medium that appeals more to “emotion” than to “reason”, a good documentary film, especially when it is about history, should have more of an impact on “reason” than on “emotion”. It should make us think, rather than just make us laugh or cry or evoke emotions and regrets. It should create questions rather than just provide answers.

If after watching a historical documentary, you have questions and become interested in learning more and searching for answers, you are facing a non-promotional and impartial documentary; but if you watched a film that triggered your emotions, whether positively or negatively, you are now facing a promotional and customized film that has short-term effects and fades away in the long run, losing its effectiveness.

A good promotional and customized film, in the sense of being functional rather than valuable, with long-term effects, is a film that changes rational beliefs through emotions and its impact, if not long-term, is definitely medium-term. However, a poorly made promotional film has a strong short-term impact, but it is like a fever that quickly subsides.

Film“

Reza.

King.“

I.

And.

You.

Film.

Advertising.

Bad.

Was.

That.

Good.

Created.

Done.

It…

So.

From.

Watching.

This.

Movie.

Alone.

Sensation.

From.

Pride.

And.

Regret.

Instead.

It remains.

And.

Alone.

Road.

That.

Mark.

Gives, way.“

Dictatorship.

For.

Development.“

This translates to “is…” in English.

No one thinks, no one searches for the discovery of truth, no one asks questions; only the answer is. It seems that the all-knowing mind is speaking the pure truth to us! The impact of this short film is short-term and only serves to benefit the ruling dictators; because it reinforces the belief that the current chaos in Iran can only be resolved with the help of a dictatorship that wants to bring order and development to Iran, and it is not pointless for someone like “Bagher Ghalibaf” to call himself a Muslim Shah.

Unfortunately, “Me and You” missed an important opportunity to delve into a part of Iran’s history and a person who played a significant role in modern Iran by creating a weak promotional and customized film. Even a good customized and promotional film could have been made, but it did not happen. It only has a temporary and widespread impact and it goes away as quickly as it came; just like the stars of the Gogoush Academy who become famous overnight and disappear the next day.