Modernity Problematic: Tehran in Pre-Revolution Cinem

Movies in Iran can be an appropriate mediates to understand urban modernity. In this paper, movies produced three decades before the Revolution (1979) are studied. Our inquiry reveals how these films represent problems stemmed from urban renovation and the process of modernity. Moreover, they had a critical perspective toward the renovation trend so that they challenged their leaders’ political claims and promises in the authoritarian society. Arousing contrast between city and village as well modern life’s paradoxes are part of existing social and economic gaps which cinema has highlighted. Besides, the films produced in the decade to 1979 predicted the possibility of the occurrence of a revolution. The present study suggests that these films frequently gave a kind of political representation of Iranian modernity.