TEHRAN — The plot may seem familiar: A group of wayward and foulmouthed young men volunteer to go to the front because of their devotion to their bomber-jacket-wearing ringleader. They are wisecracking, rude and undisciplined, singing bawdy songs and breaking prohibitions against smoking and gambling. But eventually they become heroes, proving themselves on the battlefield.
But in the Islamic Republic of Iran, such a less-than-holy depiction of the men who fought the "War of Sacred Defense," as the 1980s conflagration with Iraq is sometimes called, was groundbreaking.
Director Massoud Dehnamaki's iconoclastic 2007 film, "Ekhrajiha," or "The Rejects," struck a deep chord among Iranians accustomed to seeing the war that transformed the country as a noble cause fought by pious Muslim recruits.
Dehnamaki, a war veteran turned hard-line militia leader turned rabble-rousing newspaperman turned would-be Oliver Stone, says he was inspired by his love of war movies such as "Platoon" and "Saving Private Ryan" to write and direct what would become the most popular Iranian film of all time, and the first to spawn a sequel, which began casting in July.
"This film shattered a cliche and made it clear that the War of Sacred Defense was not limited to a special stratum," Dehnamaki says. "Everybody was involved."
With tensions building between Tehran and Washington over Iran's nuclear program, Dehnamaki's film also contains an inherent warning for America: The same seemingly irreligious and materialistic Iranian youth the West is banking on to eventually moderate Iran will defend their country against any foe.
The movie questions the very myths about war upon which the Islamic Republic rests: namely, who from Iranian society fought in the war, out of which strata they hailed and why they fought. As the hero, Majid, risks his life to walk through a minefield to clear the way for an offensive, the images rushing through his head are not fantasies of 72 virgins in heaven, but a shot of the woman he loves, his memories from a stint in prison and a grandfatherly cleric back in Tehran.
"If the country is attacked, everyone will go to war to defend it," Dehnamaki says. "All of them love their nation."
Just as Vietnam shaped the domestic politics and international policies of the U.S. for decades, the Iran-Iraq war, which ended 20 years ago Aug. 20, continues to play a profound role in Iranian society, politics, foreign affairs and even filmmaking.
