Director Jafar Panahi ran afoul of Iran’s authoritarian regime numerous times before 2011, when he was handed a 20-year ban from moviemaking.
His first response was the acidly titled “This Is Not a Film,” a semi-documentary made in his own apartment.
Panahi has now made a semi-narrative, filmed inside his Caspian Sea vacation house; it is a slower and even bleaker film.
“Closed Curtain” begins with a man (Kamboziya Partovi, the credited co-director) who’s gone into hiding with his dog after the government bans the animals from the streets.
A brother and sister break into the man’s house in search of a hideout.
After that, the film fragments into an emotionally devastating parable about what enforced silence does to an artist.
When Panahi himself walks quietly into the frame, it’s the visual equivalent of a crash of cymbals.