The Structuralist Explanation of the Sacred Defense Cinema: Case Study: ‘The Immigrant’ and ‘Leyli is With Me’

This study examines the emergence of Iranian War Cinema and explores its key components. The main question of the research is if Sacred Defense films constituted a structure or not. The hypothesis of the research suggests that these movies go beyond sharing common thematic and narrative features, but they constitute a textual formation. The aim of this study is to concentrate on the Iranian fiction war movies in order to show and analyze some features which can help us to search structural concepts in these movies. The research method would be a descriptive-analysis method. To analyze the films, as a qualitative method, the methodology of this research would be textual analysis. The theoretical framework is structural approach. Through a critical and objective analysis of the films and reviewing the valid readings about the governmental discourse, the results show that Sacred Defense films have either a ritual or an ideological function and then constitute a structure.