Tehran (2020)

Watchseries; We were searching for something & happened upon Tehran. Good for us. Well acted, written & directed. We enjoyed it a lot!

We were searching for something & happened upon Tehran. Good for us. Well acted, written & directed. We enjoyed it a lot!

Tehran watchseries. Niv Sultan stars as Tamar, a young Israeli military officer with elite hacker skills, tasked with infiltrating Tehran Hydro & shutting it down. The idea is to black out Tehran so that Israeli Air Force can fly in on some kind of bombing mission (to be honest, I am not yet clear on the objective, nor has the practical value been explained clearly). Nonetheless, Tamar flies in & pulls an identity switch at a Tehran airport washroom and sets out to recruit a young male Iranian hacker to aid her.

Things start to go wrong from the beginning & a determined and clever Iranian counter-intelligence officer named Faraz (Shaun Taub) starts tracking her movements. They make a careless arrest early on, but Tamar fashions a daring escape and the chase is on. That's all I should share about the plot. The acting ensemble is terrific and the cinematography is marvellous, with Athens, I believe, standing in for the Iranian capital.

Here's what I hope is some unique perspective:

1) both sides in this cat & mouse game can be ruthless. The Iranian secret service is much more clever than most Westerners realize, & they are not to be trifled with. The Israelis have more assets (and firepower, of course), but escapades like this one are not for the faint-hearted. 2) one thinks of the Israelis as the 'good guys' in this presentation, but they callously execute one of their sources when things go awry and they kidnap the wife of Faraz as security in a side plot. NOT 'good guy' stuff, but it's obvious the Israelis would justify the monkey business as necessary to their cause. Hmmm: you might win, but you can't WIN FRIENDS this way. 3) the series is reminiscent of a Netflix series FAUDA ('chaos') which chronicles the amazing exploits of the Israeli secret service in their homeland, struggling with control of the Palestinians, creating 3 problems for every one resolved. As the spymaster remarked in the Bourne series, THE GAME WILL BE OVER WHEN WE WIN. What I see in Tehran (once more) is: you might fare better if you just stayed home.

First three episodes have great tension and good direction than loses momentum completely and gets really slow and boring. Took a month to get through episode four

I found Tehran to be a very good espionage tv series and a bit refreshing. Instead of yet another American/British vs Russian spy thriller, here we have something different. In Tehran, we have the Israeli Mossad verses Iran's Revolutionary Guard spy thriller. What I love even more is that the acting cast is authentic middle eastern actors speaking Persian, Hebrew and some English which adds to a feeling of authenticity. Not a bunch of white guys in robes speaking British English like a Bond film. The actors are all very well cast too and excellent performers.

I don't speak or understand Persian and Hebrew, but I found the English AD audio, not to be confused with the standard English soundtrack very helpful because the original voices remain intact thereby keeping vocal stresses, inflections and tensions compared to a Netflix style dubbing. You get more out of it because the English AD audio has a narrator that speaks over, not in place of the actors voices describing what is spoken and describes the action better.

What I did find at first as an obstacle from enjoying the tv series was the speed at which Persian translates into English. During the first two episodes I had a difficult time keeping up and I watch many foreign films with subtitles. But the subtitles in this show were faster than what I was accustomed to. I don't like voice dubbing because you miss out on the vocal tension, stresses and inflictions of the original voices.

I am not a native speaker to either Persian and Hebrew. But I liked how the show handled this problem for western audiences. Their are two English audio tracks for each episode. Actually, they have two audio tracks for multiple languages including Spanish. The second audio track called the English AD track describes the action and what they are saying but without removing the original voices like a dubbed audio track. Unfortunately, it seems I have to switch on the English AD audio for each episode because it defaults back to the regular non-AD English.

I guess what I am trying to say is FYI, if you are not a native speaker and you find the flashing subtitles to fast. Give the audio English AD track along with the English AD subtitle track a try. I found I was able to keep track of the dialog and enjoy this good spy thriller. You can enjoy the series like a native speaker with this helpful hint.

I really was expecting a lot of Anti-Iranian, pro-Israeli propaganda. What I got was one of the best spy thrillers I have seen in a very long while. Also, the characters are extremely well done, given the kind of show this is so, hats of to the writers and the actors for carrying it off so well. The little plot twists, when they happen, are also well done.

Another things is the treatment of the revolutionary guard detective/case officer, whatever his job title is. Just wonderful! At times, I even started routing for him. Basically, this series shows you that the world of espionage is a very dirty world.

The part when the hacker/agent dresses up as a man did seem a little ridiculous although, to be fair I have seen many Middle Eastern youngsters who are fairly androgynous, and the show was so good, that if that was the only slip-up, then it gets a pass from me. I really hope they do a second series, and judging by the ending, that looks set to happen.

I started to watch the series because there was so many reviews in Iran especially in the conservative newspapers. Most of them wrote negative things about the new, as they called, "anti-Iranian" show in Israel.

The first episode wasn't quite accurate to me especially the part where she first came to Iran and saw an execution scene in the middle of the city (I have lived in Iran for 24 years and have never happened to see such a scene in public, maybe I don't go out very often!). But as I continued to watch I get so excited of how accurate the show is. Especially from the cast and crew who don't live in Iran and even can not come to the country to do some research. It is very true. The details and the story. It is not perfect for sure but it's very similar to reality.

I really liked the series so far, it is both smart and entertaining to watch. Politics aside I love the people of Israel and like the multi culture atmosphere in there. As I watch the series I also know more about the country.

I also have to say that I don't like how Israel's secret agency sabotage Iran. Not exactly sure how many of those events, that happen in Iran once in a while, are from Israel but some of those are from them for sure.

Overall, to the makers of the show, thanks for the series that pictures Iranian people (with all of their paradoxes) similar to the truth. Most films that take outside of Iran sadly portrait us too evil.