For his Netflix special “Inside,” the comedian spent the pandemic year training the camera on himself, with fascinating but ultimately disheartening results.
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The role of fiction is to represent that which canât be observed, whether aspects of inner life or inaccessible reaches of the outside world. Thatâs why fictional films at their best are a kind of documentaryâas is true of the Iranian director Mohammad Rasoulofâs haunting new drama, âThere Is No Evilâ (opening on Friday at Film Forum, in person and online). The film reveals horrific truths about capital punishment in Iran, and its revelations are all the more trenchant given that the Iranian government carries out executions in secret, without public observers. Rasoulofâs featureâwhich he filmed clandestinely, while banned from filmmaking on political groundsâtakes the place of impossible documentary reporting on the subject.