An absolutely fascinating film. Filmmaker Sanaz Sohrabi examines the visual archive of BP (British Petroleum, and the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company as it was back in the day) as history, ethnography, propaganda, and stolen colonial artefact.
In 1901 Britain bought a concession to explore for oil in Iran for the next 60 years, with Iran receiving only a portion of the revenues from any oil found. This geological study was the means by which Britain extracted extraordinary amounts of Iran’s oil wealth to fuel the British Empire. The photos taken of the landscape and people are a history of colonial intrusion, exploitation, and destruction.
Sohrabi is beautifully articulate, far moreso that I can be in this review, in examining how the images of people were taken of them, from them, by those in power in furtherance of the narratives which kept them in power. This film is about who controls your land, your wealth, your heritage, your image, your depiction, your story. Not simply of the past and in the past, but to this day.
The BP archive collections present a glorious endeavour, a collaborative project between the peoples of the world for the betterment of all. The Trans-Iranian railway was a huge infrastructure project meant to launch Iran as a modern nation, and it was funded entirely by oil revenues. Images of its construction show a vision for a prosperous Iranian future entwined with the benefits reaped from continued British oil exploitation. And those consigned to Iran’s past were images of indigenous Bahktiari people, presented as pre-modern, ethnographical Others, waiting with bated breath for the British to come and bring their technological wonders, to be taken with them into the 20th century.
Never mind that British geologists relied on indigenous knowledge and assistance to even to traverse the terrain, or survive the climate. Never mind that they came to detonate explosions under indigenous land in search for indications of oil. Never mind the lasting impacts ecologically, economically or socially.
“Archive is a verb. It sees. It silences.” The very act of removing these images from the people of whom they are about, to be owned, kept and portrayed in the BP archives how they see fit, denies any ability for them to be used with agency from their subjects. Survey is the first act in this process of extraction and looking is the first act of violence, an act of dominance against those done-to.
An excellent film.