Cinema of dissimulation: Deleuzian powers of the false and Benjaminian Erfahrung in Iranian modern cinema

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Iranian culture has a long history of dissimulation and falsehood, and their incorporation into Iranian modern cinema performs the function that Benjamin has identified for a certain modality of experience, namely Erfahrung. This article argues that in Iranian modern cinema epitomized by Jafar Panahi’s cinema of dissimulation, the filmmaker becomes the forger who benefits from the Deleuzian power of the false to produce a modern cinema of time-image that corresponds with traditional dissimulation practices and other modes of indirect communication that are prevalent in Iranian society.