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The Iranian auteur films in the areas of art-house cinema (with a more restrained and metaphorical structure) and social realism (with a bold and critical voice) have a common trait: They both communicate a deep-seated, ironic, and (at times) radical hope for heech/nothing. The idea of hoping for nothing, an irrational, faint hope in the midst of darkness, was already projected in Persian mystic philosophy and poetry, as well as the secular poetic discourses. Considering the profound connection between Iranian cinema and Persian poetry, it is no surprise that the concept of a poetic “hope for heech” has informed the Iranian cinema (see Sheibani 2011). Before analyzing the notion of a “hope for heech” in the cinema, the concept of heech or nothingness should be examined.

In the Persian language, heech means “nothing” and “nothingness.” However, in poetic and philosophical discourses (mystical and secular), there are multiple semantic implications associated with the concept of heech or nothingness. Nothingness does not necessarily suggest “death,” “destitution,” “annihilation,” or “non-existence.” In a mystic journey to find the Truth, reaching the state of nothingness means freeing the Self from the shackles of one’s ego, so as to transcend to the ultimate Truth. Mystics could only achieve wholeness (the state of Ensan-e Kamel or “perfect human being”), if their souls were cleansed from distractions, such as materialistic interests that retain the soul from embracing pure love. In the world of both the secular lover and a spiritual lover or Sufi, heech/“nothing” is more than “nothing.” “Heech is the ‘thirst,’ ‘enthusiasm’, and ‘desire’ to uncover the truth” (Pazyar 2018). Heech could also turn into an infatuation for someone or something, or a desire to be united with a beloved. The Iranian poet and thinker, Sa’di Shirazi stated that if the whole world is reduced to nothing, or to ruins, as long as lovers are united, that “nothingness” can turn to wholeness (Rubayee no. 10).⁴ In a similar manner, another prominent Medieval poet, Hafez, takes solace in drinking wine with a friend in a secluded shelter amidst the absurdity and nothingness of the whole world (Ghazal no. 298). Iranians found consolation and comfort in savoring the present moment, knowing that the tangible world, the whole universe, is heech/nothing, after all. This idea is embodied in the rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam (Rubayee no. 101). For Khayyam, nothingness is the point of union. It merges opposing sides, such as life and death (Rubayee no. 7), determinism and free will (Rubayee no. 5), and absurdity and desire (Rubayee no. 29). Heech, could mean the infusion of all and none that lead us to the hidden world, a domain beyond our comprehension (see Tadayon 2012).

Contradictory values exist in the juxtaposition between nothingness and wholeness. In the philosophical scheme of Sufism, it is indicated that “from nothingness, from silence, from darkness, existence was brought forth” (Michon 2006, 160). This is how the absent and present become one. Reaching the state of nothingness could lead the seeker to silence (as asserted in Rumis’s Ghazal 2219), to doubt, and to challenging the status quo. It leads an uncertain seeker to pass the realm of absolutism and to embrace the domain of non-absolutism. Celebrating heechness is an act of defiance, a form of silent protest.

Therefore, the concept of nothingness connotes diverse meanings in Persian culture. To have hope in nothingness is to have hope in emancipation, even in failing.⁵ For a nation that was repeatedly faced with atrocities, tragedy, and desolation, hope could emerge out of nothingness. This recalls Terry Eagleton’s concept of a tragic, radical hope emerging from ruin. The concept of hope for heech is similar to Eagleton’s formulation, according to which “the most authentic kind of hope is whatever can be salvaged, stripped of guarantees, from a general dissolution” (2015, 114). Hope for heech is gratifying because heech is not a flat nothingness (in a literal negative way). Heech is the point of integration of the contradictory elements of life and death, love and loss, darkness and light, and absence and presence. Attaining heech is the moment when the quest becomes more significant than reaching the goal, when desire takes precedence over the subject of love. There may be failure, but it is a graceful failure. So even if the ending is not happy, it is at least a transcendental moment that signifies the completion of a quest. In light of the merging of nothingness and wholeness, and a hope for heech, notions such as gratification in a search for an impossible love, and contemplation and acceptance of death become significant in Iranian films. In a similar fashion, the hope for heech makes the recurrent concepts of indetermination and non-absolutism notable subjects of Iranian films.

There are traces of hope for nothing in the New Wave cinema of the 1960s and 1970s, but over time, the concept has taken a more sophisticated and philosophical form in cinematic productions. This is both visible in art-house and in popular movies. The aesthetics of hope for heech, a shared value among filmmakers and filmgoers in the context of Iranian cinema has been represented in various ways, such as an infatuation with an impossible love and a thirst for union, death awareness, and even celebrating the end of life. In acknowledging the absurdity of life and the uncertainties surrounding humanity’s state of being.

In films such as Separation (2011, dir. Asghar Farhadi), Certified Copy (2010, dir. Abbas Kiarostami), Just 6.5 (Metri Shehsh o Nim, 2019, dir. Saeed Rustayi), African Violet (2019, dir. Mona Zandi Haghighi), Verdict (2005, dir. Masud Kimiai), and The Love-Stricken, an impossible or inconclusive love is portrayed. Separation pictures a world of divisions, separations, distinctions, and even connections that set borders between people. Farhadi masterfully challenges the juxtaposition of binary oppositions such as modernity vs. tradition, honesty vs. dishonesty, and secular mind-sets vs. religious attitudes. One of the least noticed binary oppositions that is represented in the film is love vs. lack of love. Simin and Nader are going to get separated as their paths get divided. But when Nader’s life becomes complicated and he gets arrested, the couple are temporarily reunited. It is a brief reunion that will shatter their daughter’s hopes for their reunion. The hope for heech in this film is a bittersweet one for audiences as well.

The Persian title of the film is Jodai-ye Nader az Simin, or Separation of Nader from Simin. The inclusion of the couple’s names in the Persian title is significant because the title of many romantic stories in Persian literature includes the names of characters. Nezami Ganjavi’s masterpieces such as Khosrow and Shirin, Leyli and Majnun, and Ferdowsi’s Rostam and Tahmineh, Siyavash and Farangis, and Gorgani’s classical romance, Vis and Ramin are examples of such stories. Stories that bear the romantic couple’s names in Persian have a particular appeal for audiences. Sweet moments of lovemaking in such stories are combined with disappointing instances of separation. Most romantic stories in Persian literature end unhappily or inconclusively. Iranian readers of classical literature know from the very beginning that they are likely not going to be rewarded with a happy ending, yet these stories are the most beloved in Iranian culture. Separation of Nader from Simin is a modern, and more pessimistic version of such stories. It bears the term “separation” in the title. The audience, right from its beginning, knows that this is a story of separation, not (re)union. The narrative does not describe the beginning of the romance either. In other words, it starts in media res (in the midst of the story), that depicts the bitter part of their relationship. Separation is the story of the termination of love. The spectators’ hope for heech is fulfilled by the raising of questions about the nature of love and affection between people. It shows how love can be transformed with changes in social and personal circumstances in the modern era.

In a similar way, the temporary union of Elle/she and an art scholar in Certified Copy portrays an ambiguous and inconclusive love. In a sequence in the film, the scholar, who could be seen as Kiarostami’s alter ego, questions the permanency of love in a relationship. He quotes the translation of a part of a poem by M. Omid—“the garden of leaflessness, who dares to say that it isn’t beautiful?”—implying the parallel elegance between the end of love and the blooming of love. Certified Copy crushes any hopes for understanding even the nature of love between the two characters. The beautiful scenery of Tuscany, a handsome couple drinking wine, driving and walking together, and a sophisticated and thought-provoking discussion between them is all the viewers get. As in other films by Kiarostami, the fragmented moments of happiness remind us that life and love are transitory; wholeness is only achieved in understanding nothingness.

In African Violet, when an ailing ex-husband is abandoned in a nursing home, the ex-wife decides to bring him to her home with her new partner. The three of them find new connections that are reminiscent of their bittersweet past lives and the ironic and mystifying affections that they have had for one another. The tragic, painful, and impossible love of a daring woman for two men is portrayed in a poetic mise-en-scene that is the hallmark of Iranian art-house cinema. African Violet is a celebration of colors, dreams, affections, and resoluteness, but also of the indeterminacies of a woman who finds love and lack of love in both of her marriages. The ailing man feels rejuvenated in his ex-wife’s company, but his son takes him back to the nursing home, where he dies in despair. The woman gains not only joy, but also pain in her acts of kindness throughout the narrative. The aesthetics of a hope for heech creates a lyrical cinematic experience for spectators.

As in many other social realist films, the movie Just 6.5 represents the impossible love, which makes social failures and shortcomings even more painful for its characters. In Just 6.5, a drug lord, waiting to be executed, is absurdly in love with a woman who had abandoned him and later disclosed his name to the cops.

Hope for nothing is well-represented in movies that examine mortality, as well. In Verdict the crime lord Reza Ma’rufi, ponders the insignificance or heechness of life:

When I was young, Sadeq Hedayat told me something that’s still lingering in my mind. He said: “everyone has a great asset, which is taking their life. If you feel blue … if you are lonely … if no one comes to see you … go for your asset.”

In the last sequence of Verdict, a gang member, madly in love with his disenchanted girlfriend, sets a plot to be killed by the person he loves the most. In his last words to her, he says: “I liked to be killed by your verdict, by love’s verdict.” Both of these characters were infatuated with gaining more impact in the gang hierarchy, yet both seem to be constantly thinking about death, as an inevitable part of their lives. Life and death in this film and many other Iranian films are represented in the same ken. Death is not the end of life; it is the continuity of life.

Pondering death, and by extension, life, is one of the most recurrent topics of Iranian films. It is also directly connected with the aesthetics of hope for nothing. Generally speaking, awareness of death and being mindful of the fleeting state of being are among the pillars of Persian culture. The terms inshallah (God willing), and agar ghesmat basheh (if fate would have it) are common parlance. In classical literature (such as Rumi’s and Khayyam’s poetry) and modern literature (as in Sadeq Hedayat’s and Shahrnoush Parsipour’s fictional works and Forough Farrokhzad’s poetry) life and death are constantly positioned side by side. The transitory situation of life, of happy or wonderful moments, are constantly communicated to readers of Persian literature. The philosophy of seizing the moment and being mindful of the present time, as best represented in Khayyam’s poetry and some fictional works by Hedayat, have roots in this deep-seated cultural awareness of death. Films such as Taste of Cherry (1999, dir. Abbas Kiarostami), The Wind Will Cary Us (2000, dir. Abbas Kiarostami), At Five in the Afternoon (2005, dir. Samira Makhmalbaf), About Elly (2009, dir. Asghar Farhadi), and Dance with me (2019, dir. Soroush Sehat) are only a handful of films that depict death as an extension of life.

No other Iranian filmmaker has explored the question of death and embracing nothingness more deeply than Abbas Kiarostami. Death is the most visible topic in at least two films by Kiarostami. In Taste of Cherry, death and reaching the point of nothingness is portrayed as a simple reality of life. The narrative follows a driver on the outskirts of Tehran in search of someone to aid in his burial after he commits suicide. In this film, ending one’s life is not portrayed as depressing or horrible, but as a (liberating) choice for an individual in search of the meaning of life. The driver encounters three individuals in his quest. An immature soldier who is shying away from facing contradictory questions about life and death, a middle-aged seminarian who is dead-certain about the impiety associated with committing suicide, and an old free-spirited man who had already pondered the possibility of ending his own life, yet decided that life has much more to offer. The old man believes that it would be a shame to give up observing the sunrise and the moonlight, or to give up the taste of mulberries and cherries. The soldier represents youth and immaturity, the middle-aged seminarian represents the absolutism that comes with gaining a limited understanding of life, and the old man represents the enlightenment of a wise man who has given up everything to attain the liberation associated with nothingness. The driver’s travelling on the dusty roads, far from crowds of people, and his encounters with the three people resemble a mystic’s quest in finding the Truth, embodied in Attar’s Conference of Birds as the Seven Domains of Love (Haft Shahr-e Eshq). The last domain, according to Attar is pure destitution/Faghr and annihilation, or nirvana/Fanaa. When the mystic loses everything, he attains enlightenment. The driver travels from one destination/manzel to the next in order to gain this state of enlightenment. The ending of the narrative does not make it clear whether the driver commits suicide or not, but what the spectator sees in the last two sequences still gives the viewer a sense of liberation and relief. First, the driver takes his last companion to the garden, where he works. The slow-moving camera patiently displays trees, flowers, and birds, dancing under a beam of sunlight. Metaphorically, the driver is eventually enlightened. The next sequence shows the man in a pitch dark grave. His silhouette is cast by the lightning of a thunderstorm. It may or may not be the end of his life. The film does not bother to clarify this point. The last sequence, shot with a handheld camera, shows the driver reaching for a cigarette. He is accompanied by the film crew, and Kiarostami himself shows up. Louis Armstrong’s Hot Five version of “St. James Infirmary” plays. The camera pans horizontally to show an abundance of greenery. Kiarostami cuts the scene. The soldiers, the green scenery, and the cheerful music pronounce a fresh start to life. A rejuvenated hope is born.

In The Wind Will Carry Us, death is represented as a magnificent, emancipatory experience in a village whose residents live a long life, but celebrate death as an inevitable part of life. The film bears the title of a poem by Forough Farrokhzad. In this poem, Farrokhzad eloquently talks about the transitory state of being, which passes like a breeze of darkness. Inspired by the poem, the movie shows the presence of death in everyday activities. The lead character, Behzad, initially fears death, but eventually becomes at ease with it and views it as another stage of life. His trip to the village is initiated in order to film the funeral procession of an old lady. The funeral is meant to be an exotic and spectacular event, worth making an ethnographical documentary about. In the end, his journey turns into a spiritual quest to contemplate life and death and to seize the moment, as the local doctor advised Behzad, by reciting the following poem by Khayyam:

They say paradise is pleasant with houries (beautiful women) I say wine (earthly pleasure) is more pleasant Take the present to the promise A drum sounds pleasing from afar

The uncertain approach that is seen in Kiarostami’s movie is also represented in Farhadi’s About Elly. About Elly raises the spectators’ hope for finding answers to the mysteries surrounding the character of Elly, her relations with other characters, and the reasons behind her disappearance. The search for Elly in the film is metaphorically significant. All humans have a forgotten part of themselves. They only search for it when they realize that it is lost. It is only in the state of loss that people start to appreciate what’s not there and find a thirst and desire to regain it. About Elly celebrates hope for heech in showing the proximity of life and death, certainty and indeterminacy, love and hatred, free will and determinism.

Kiarostami’s last film, 24 Frames (2017) is the ultimate celebration of hope for heech. It consists of a painting and 23 frames of photos (taken by the director) that come to life through the art of animation. Most of the frames portray nature, birds, a herd of sheep, two lions, trees, snow, rain, and so forth. Nothing substantial happens in each frame. The key moment in each frame would be a bird flying away, or the sound of gunfire scaring away animals. The frames are fragmented as there is no grand narrative connecting the frames together. 24 Frames glamorizes nothingness on many different levels: narrative-wise, it is a non-narrative movie. From a cinematic perspective, it is not considered cinema, for it is a combination of photography, animation, and painting. With the exception of two frames, the main figures are animals (not humans), recalling the classical stories of One Thousand and One Nights and Kelileh and Denmeh (or Pancha Tantra) in which, animals become main characters. In terms of cinematography, it is minimalist and subtle. There is also no dialogue in the film. Nor is there a sense of time in the film. 24 Frames is a meditative and poetic film that celebrates the immediate moment by showing mundane moments of (natural) life. In fact, 24 Frames is a compilation of shorts, and the closest film to Akkas Bashi’s early short films that captured the moving pictures of some moments in people’s lives.

In all of the films that were discussed in this section, hope for heech turns out to be emancipatory, both on the narrative level and for the spectators. In most of these films, there is no happy ending, sometimes no ending at all. The hope for nothing eventually ends in nothingness, opening a venue in the spectators’ minds to conclude their own narrative.

The public aesthetic and artistic value of Iranian cinema is indebted to the intrinsic cultural values of Iranian culture, which in turn has been influenced by the cross-cultural and global aesthetic and artistic currents. The public artistic value of Iranian cinema as the dominant form of cultural expression made it a new pedestal for collective cultural activities among filmmakers and filmgoers. Iranian cinema outside of the political borders of the country has public value for the Persian, Baluchi, Urdu, Pashtun, Turkish, Turkmen, Arabic, Kurdish, and Lurish speaking communities in the Near and Middle East since it represents a shared cultural proximity in terms of linguistic, religious, and cultural ties.

Iranian cinema diversified the global aesthetic and artistic value of films. In the past 40 years, it has brought visibility to a culture and a nation that were otherwise undermined due to political isolation. The aesthetics of the curved sarv/cypress made it possible for an independent and auteur-based cinema to flourish under a totalitarian political system. While the majority of Iranian films did not adopt the Third Cinema aesthetics, the filmmakers’ hope for heech/nothingness led to a more liberated art form and a liberating and transcendental cinematic experience for the spectators.⁶