In the years since, Captain Khorshid has often been cited alongside Mehrjui’s The Cow and Beyzai’s Bashu, the Little Stranger as one of the defining works of post-revolutionary Iranian cinema.
Later Works: Oh Iran (1999) and Paper Without Lines (1999)
In the 1990s, Taghvaei turned his attention to themes of national identity and historical memory. His 1999 film Oh Iran, starring Akbar Abdi, Hossein Sarshar, and Gholam Hossein Naqshineh, was a meditation on patriotism, nostalgia, and the complexities of Iranian modernity. Set in the picturesque village of Masouleh, the film combined lyrical imagery with political undercurrents.
Though excluded from the Fajr Film Festival’s competition section, Oh Iran found an appreciative audience among critics who admired its subtle defiance and humanism.
That same year, Taghvaei made Paper Without Lines, co-written with Minoo Farshchi. While some viewers felt it lacked the narrative intensity of his earlier works, others praised its restraint and craftsmanship. The film’s focus on structure and form — “a film about silence and absence,” as Taghvaei described it — revealed a mature artist still experimenting within his aesthetic limits.
