Facing the World, All Alone: New Perspectives on Iran’s Nuclear Negotiations Via Ehsan Abdipour’s All Alone

Abstract

The major focus of the present paper is All Alone (2013), an Iranian film by Ehsan Abdipour which narrates the life of a boy from Boushehr, whose friendship with the son of a Russian engineer at a nuclear plant has to end as the result of the sanctions against Iran’s nuclear capacity at the time. Using the lens of young adults and children, the film tangibly illustrates the impact of the sanctions on the lives of individuals. The power of cinematic representation in highlighting the significance of child perspectives is that it can reveal the human effect of sanctions not directly addressed in the adult world. In addition, the liminal position of the pre-adolescent can provide new space for negotiating the ‘unspoken’ or unrecognized effects of the sanctions. At the same time, as an Iranian who followed the progress of nuclear talks closely between 2013-2015, the recent release of Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer (2023) triggered an immediate association with recollections about the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), known more commonly as Iran’s Nuclear Deal. In particular, Oppenheimer’s self-reflexive recollections of the questions he grappled with as a youth about the nature of the universe struck a chord with the dilemma faced by the young protagonist in All Alone. In the light of this, the paper will also briefly consider the controversies around nuclear talks at the time All Alone was made.

Keywords

• child-centered cinema
• cinematic representation
• iran's nuclear program
• all alone