Examining the Idea of Time based on the Opinions of Gilles Deleuze in the Iranian Cinema of the 90s (with Case Analysis of Movies: Fish and Cat, Enter the Dragon! and The Ridiculous)

Gilles Deleuze can undoubtedly be considered one of the most important philosophers and theorists of cinema. In the 1980s, Deleuze wrote two volumes of cinema books, which established the main directions of cinema philosophy as a separate discipline in the university. Among different philosophers, Bergson has the most influence on Deleuze's theories. Both of them believe that time is not linear and quantitative but qualitative and non-local. The extension of this philosophy led to the formation of the chronology as the main basis of time and cinema in Deleuze's works. In the first volume of his book, Deleuze deals with movement-oriented classical cinema and in the second volume with time-oriented modern works. Time is the central element of Deleuze's modern narratives, dividing images into temporal mirrors and crystals. Deleuze strongly believed in the simultaneity of non-linear times and events in modern works. In recent years, modern Iranian cinema has turned more and more to Deleuze's philosophy and many time elements can be seen in various works. This research comes with Deleuze's modern cinema theories by examining the films of Fish and Cat made by Shahram Makri, Dragon! The work of Mani Haghighi and Homayoun Ghanizadeh's mockumentary comes to the conclusion that the filmmakers of the younger generation of Iran became more interested in non-linear events with tools such as retrospective and forward-looking, as well as the association of past, present and future times in one scene. In the meantime, Makri is strongly influenced by the time period and Mani Haghighi, as a philosophy student, borrows many elements from Deleuze in his works.