Indigenising American Spirituality: the Case of Dariush Mehrjui’s Appropriation of Salinger’s Franny and Zooey

Abstract

ABSTRACT Despite the emergence of insightful scholarship in Iranian cinema in the twenty-first century, there is a paucity of critical studies on the crossroad between cinema and national identity, particularly how the latter is constructed, (re)inscribed, and refashioned through the structures of feeling the former concocts. A particular case in point is the directorial oeuvre of Dariush Mehrjui, an auteur whose feature films play a vital role in nurturing and (re)fashioning national identity on the silver screen. This article examines the projection of a distinct national identity in Pari (1995), an adaptation of Salinger’s Franny and Zooey. It builds upon the nexus between national identity and cinema, theoretically advanced by Michael Billig and Tim Edensor, to delineate the articulation of an alternative ‘Iranian-ness’ texture in Iranian cinema. Pari, a quest-driven narrative in which the protagonist abdicates material life to achieve spiritual salvation, is an interpellative dream-text serving to espouse how the refashioned national identity should be conceived and emulated.