Sure we’ve all been there, budding musical talent, oppressive overlords and the desire to just run. Of course, being facetious is just one of my talents and as I sat through the new Iranian film No One Knows About Persian Cats by Bahman Ghoubadi (A Time For Drunken Horses,Turtles Can Fly) I wondered, if music is the food of love, why did I feel indigestion? Or shall I say heart burn? (Ah the pun).

If you are geographically challenged and are wondering where Iran is, it’s the place on the Neo-Con map, where the ol’ Stars and Stripes is firmly planted up the (with all due respect of course, we respect everyone’s culture here) Ayatallah’s ass, classified by some as part of the ‘Axis of Evil’, ‘yes or no nuke’ Middle Eastern-type countries that everyone’s afraid of. It’s also the place where back in 2007 a couple of British sailors were detained for activities suspicious and altogether unsavoury.

Now since 1979 Iran has been under an Islamic government and as the film shows, this regime has a tin ear and no stomach for music that is ‘Western and decadent’. If by this they mean music like Justin Beiber’s I say amen to that brother, but it does not. For all the aspiring musicians of Iran this means playing in cow sheds. Or so the film makes out.

Western music in Iran besides Chris de Burgh (who performed there in 2005) is generally not allowed and if you find yourself of the musical persuasion, life’s going to be tough. This more or less applies to nearly all the arts and for director Bahman Ghobadi it also meant being barred from making a film for almost 3 years. It was in this limbo that he met the indie rock band, Take It Easy Hospital and this purr of a tale is the story of this band and the longing looks the leads exchange.

Fronted by the characterless Ashkan Kooshanejad and the grating, whiny Nigar Shaghaghi who are fresh out of the slammer (for playing the devils music), Take it Easy Hospital find themselves desperate to high tail it out of Iran so that they can a) play at a concert in Manchester and b) fulfil themselves as people/musicians anywhere else but than in Iran. In this quest they hook up with wheeler-dealer motor-mouth Nader who promises passports, a one way ticket and the stars – and so the duo’s odyssey begins.  The journey ends with a big splat but no spoilers just yet; first an aside on the film’s message.

Films with messages irritate me. And then when these messages are blared out over megaphones drowning out the film itself, I feel an intense antipathy and frankly stop caring. No One Knows About Persian Cats is less of a film then a political statement, the celluloid overwhelmed and forgotten for the sake of some wastrels who can’t get to play their music. Of course I completely understand that Big Brother needs to take a step or ten back, but when you make such a movie you disregard Iranian sentiment altogether and pander right to the that Neo-Con view of the country that smacks of ‘drop a bomb on their @$$’. It encourages people to throw up their arms and dismiss the nation as a whole or think, as the drunk guy sitting next to me said, “they’re no better than communists”.  Sure it sucks that you’ve got a government ministry that lays out what you can and cannot do, but such inward criticism has a tendency to be misconstrued and plays very much to the gallery.

The big splat (and spoiler) that I spoke of before comes towards the end of the film as hope is lost and the band’s efforts to flee are dashed when their black market passports never materialise. Ashkan goes in search of Nader at a party to find out just what has gone wrong and in comes a police raid, arresting all the revellers for drunkenness and debauchery. Ashkan, having just done a stint in the pokey doesn’t want to go back, ridiculously jumps out of a window and… splat. It reminds one of the scene in Marjan Satrapi’s Persepolis and then when in grief , Nigar takes a stage dive herself. You’re left wondering whether it’s all not a little too overwrought and  forced. The frustration of their situation doesnt warrent such a dramatic and hackneyed end.

No One Knows About Persian Cats won a special jury prize at Cannes last year, so it seems that some critics have been won over. But, were they won over by the film or by its message? Watch it if you can get your hands on it but don’t chant the tag line, “a fascinating celebration of the sound of resistance”, that’s just drivel.