Iranian directors responded by turning the camera slightly away. The romance is not in what we see, but in what we are forced to imagine . A long, silent car ride through winding desert roads (Kiarostami’s Taste of Cherry ). A conversation through a glass door, with a reflection separating their faces (Farhadi’s About Elly ). A woman’s ankle, briefly visible beneath a chador. The sound of a laugh from behind a curtain. The tremor in a man’s hand as he adjusts a rearview mirror to see her eyes, just for a second.
In the Islamic Republic of Iran, on-screen physical affection between unrelated men and women is prohibited. But rather than stifling creativity, this restriction has forced directors to become masters of subtext.