More than a documentary about the nation’s past, Ali Hatami’s Delshodegan (1992) is a fictionalized reflection on the inscription and standardization of traditional music. As such, the film deals with the longue duree of contingencies that have surrounded and continue to inform the historical inscription of “the national” in representational technologies. The nation’s past and present are coeval in Delshodegan and, as such, interact in representational form. Fictional characters on the screen and audience members present before the screen are seen as inhabiting synchronous positions vis-a-vis mediating technologies–technologies that simultaneously plot the course of the narrative on screen and, too, constitute and represent the nation’s identity, past and present.

The focus of my analysis of Delshodegan in this article will be a close reading of the meanings, messages, and contradictions presented through both sound and image. I aim to highlight the contradictions that emerge from a secondary divergence, specifically those created by the film’s narrative positioning on one hand and its enunciation on the other, particularly as they relate to national identity. While my approach moves away from interpreting the film solely as a narrative, it facilitates a reflection on the cultural sites where the utopian image of the nation is constructed. This is especially pertinent in the context of early Iranian post-revolutionary cinema, as exemplified by this film made in 1992.