Daei Jan Napoleon

It's safe to say that My Uncle Napoleon television series is the best television series in Iran to this day. There are many similarities with Don Quixote's Cervantes book. The main character is the uncle of life, like Don Quixote himself, is a stupendous person, and his servant, who is a person called the Qasim mosque, like Sancho Panza, fosters these illusions. If you would like to know about the Iranian culture in the past 60 years with the satire of humor, I will suggest this TV show to you.

I think it is essential for every Iranian to watch this TV series for at least one time. You cannot ever think of no encyclopedia of Iranian culture more complete and sophisticated than this one. This is an amazing, unbelievable and everlasting harmony of the best Iranian screenplay, director, actors and actresses, original soundtrack, edit, cinematography and every other aspect at their best conditions during their life. This will surely never happen again.

If you focus on the characters and search ALL the Iranian actors and actresses you cannot change ANY of them with the ones who take place in this series.

If you focus an the soundtrack, you will be surprised that how Iranian cultural music can describe and fit in every action, romantic, drama, comedy and thrilling scene so beautifully. This is the Only Iranian production that uses just this kind of music and its soundtrack is also a masterpiece by itself. ( compare with the best examples: Hossien Alizadeh works )

If you focus on the story ... Ooops! what am I saying? is there any better choice? God bless Iraj Pezeshkzad!

If you focus on director, no doubt it is the best of Taghvaei.

If you focus on converting the story to screenplay - in which Pezeshkzad has been ready and helping all the time - what better example in the world you can find?? Try reading the book several years after watching the series. During reading the voices will sound and the faces are in your mind all the time.

Finally, due to the political, economical and cultural conditions of Iran at that year (1976, just 2 years before revolution, years of common wealth and time to begin to know more about Western culture) and this magnificent set of elements and their admirable effort to make their best (which ALL of them were really successful in it) and the Iranian heritage of essay, the book itself; it is unique and it will never happen again...

Almost everyone literature fan might have happened upon a visual adaptation that doesn't meet the expectation and besides ruins the initial great impression of the book, however for those who have read the novel; in this case that's simply NOT the case.

Rising out of a magazine footnote, My Uncle Napoleon (aka Dear Uncle Napoleon) turned out to be one of the most memorable works of Post World War II Persian literature. Generally speaking every aspect of the novel testifies its splendid artistry. Skillful development of characters, reasonable sequence of incidents and innovative comical conflicts are among the chief characteristics of the novel.

Taghvai once stated that he believes the TV series to be the most reasonable means for a truthful adaptation of a novel. "A really good story (a novel) in literature is not translatable to the language of cinema (feature film) at all", the director says.

Therefore with some variations in the course of narration (e.g. the beginning of the first and the conclusion of the final episode), leaving out a couple of minor characters, and addition of some brilliantly fitting dialog, the director profitably makes the story polished enough for a mini-series.

Today the audience is quite grateful for the raw material being placed in the right hands of a team as praiseworthy as the novelist, a director and a cast who could exploit the source as much as possible. In fact admirers could shift back and forth between the novel and the series while enjoying both points of view. (And that's hardly a surprise since Iraj Pezeshkzad and the director were acutely in touch for the production)

Accordingly the outcome is admirable and timeless. That's why it could be said quite certainly that every generation of Iranian people would appreciate the product. Nice job and well done !

10/10

Being born in the post revolutionary Iran, I only heard others sing praises on the excellence of this TV Series; only to find out for myself that not only did it live up to the hype, but more.

The powerful portrayal of the delusional Daii Jan Napoleon by the acting guru Gholamhoessein Naghshineh whose every performance is as colorful as any brings forth a feeling unlike any to this point in Iranian cinema.

The supporting cast is a compilation of the best leading actors Iranian movie-making has seen to date. Keshavarz, Sayyad and Karimi are only few of this star studded cast.

Of course the brilliance of Pezeshkzad's writing is unquestionable, and Taghvai brings this masterpiece to life decently. My only complaints are the dubbed nature of the dialog, awful sound effects and the sloppy editing of the movie, which is understandable due to the limited equipment of Iranian Television and Radio in 1976. Nonetheless the entertainment value of the movie is high enough for the audience to ignore these flaws.

Definitely a must-see 9 out of 10.