Educational Media Reviews Online

Tehran Blues is a documentary that attempts to take the viewer on a musical journey with musician Erfan as guide. He drives through Tehran singing as he introduces more musicians. One by one they talk about what music means to them. The music featured is a mixture of traditional and modern.

As the film progresses, around the thirty-minute mark, it loses its structure and focuses less on music and more on an interview with a local fisherman talking about his life in Iran. The scenery of urban Tehran and the rural countryside are very interesting to see, but at times it feels disjointed when the film cuts to random everyday moments in Erfan’s life that have no context.

Its strength lies in small moments but as a whole this documentary would benefit from editing to show a clear path about what this film is about. The first half is an interesting look at the street musicians trying to preserve music that is being forgotten along with performances of those songs. Another part that is interesting, but not focused on, was the inclusion of a female singer who talked about how women in Iran have been forbidden to sing, but they do not go into detail about this.

These topics are compelling but when not fully developed or elaborated on can make for a fatiguing last half.

This could be used in a music class or a sociology class to see a glimpse of Iranian society, but not as an in-depth study.

The film is in Persian and Kurdish with English subtitles.

Awards:
Goya Awards, Best Documentary Film Nominee

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