I went to see the movie Argo a few months ago. It was pretty boring, I thought. I mean, it was well-directed and edited; I know it won a lot of awards and all that. If you didn’t know the facts, you would have thought the movie was exciting. But all that really happened was, half a dozen US government employees sneaked out the back of the American Embassy on Takteh Jamshid Avenue and walked down the street to the Canadian Embassy. A few months later, an American agent got them out of the country. There was no shoot-out. It was disconcerting, too, seeing the scenes at the Embassy. I know it was really shot in Istanbul, but I was expecting to see the Hotel Caspian and other landmarks nearby. Naturally, since they couldn’t get permission to shoot in Iran itself, the exterior location shots weren’t that accurate.
Lucretia noted, the woman taking pictures as they walked through the bazaar — well, yeah, that was a real no-no. People wouldn’t like that. And it was true that they wouldn’t serve drinks on the plane until they were no longer over Iranian airspace. But everything else in the movie was over-dramatized.
Still, that’s what makes a good picture.
Barbara has started putting together the screenplay for Zehbel. Actually, I think she’s about halfway done. We have to get together and go over the scenes, to make sure everything is exactly right. The difference between Argo and Zehbel is, I’m a whole lot closer to the truth. And the truth, what I lived through during those ten years in Iran, is much more exciting than Argo.
I still miss all my wonderful friends back in Iran, but I have a good life here in Pennsylvania. And I’m grateful for that.