Where is Felicity Land? A Discourse Semiotic Study of Felicity Land Directed by Maziar Miri

The 2000s was an important decade in the history of Iranian cinema because some important movies were made at this time which represented the major discourse dominating Iranian society. “Felicity Land” is among them. This film received many journalistic reviews so far, but no academic research about this film has been conducted yet. However, focusing on this and other films made by Miri, this paper is to answer the question that what discourses are represented in this film and what are the relationships between these discourses and the macro-discourses dominating Iranian society in this decade. In fact, the purpose of the paper is to shed light on the complexities of the discourses determining the Iranians daily life and the way they are represented in Maziar Miri's works. Theoretically and methodologically, the paper is based on Ernesto Lanclau and Chantal Mouffe’s post-structural discourse theory and Soltani's (2014) Discourse-Semiotic Approach for studying films. The findings show that among the macro discourses of Modernity and Tradition governing on Iranian society in its modern history, the film is more inclined to represent the modernity discourse. In addition, the film shows a discursive conflict between men and women, women and husbands, and parents and children.