Recognizing the Unrecognizable in Dariush Mehrjui’s Gav

This article explores the ways in which Dariush Mehrjui’s Gav uses cinematic free indirect discourse to complicate our understanding of how the human comes to be recognized within a social field. In so doing, the film not only exposes a perceptual differential or lacuna in how the human is perceived but also posits itself as a medium with the power to help bridge this gap of intelligibility between a community and those individuals whose desire for recognition goes unrecognized by their community.