Coup 53 is a 2019 British documentary about the 1953 Iranian coup d'état to overthrow Iranian prime minister Mohammad Mosaddegh, co-written and directed by Taghi Amirani and co-written and edited by Walter Murch.
Production The film, directed by Taghi Amirani, was edited and co-written by Walter Murch. Amirani devoted several years of sleuthing to research the story behind the 1953 coup. The film describes the departure of Amirani's family from Iran to England and then follows Amirani as he uncovers the evidence of the plot hatched by British and US intelligence, led by the CIA's Kermit Roosevelt Jr.
Central to the documentary is a series of clips in which actor Ralph Fiennes reads from a transcript of an interview with MI6 agent Norman Darbyshire, who admitted to plotting the coup (codenamed "Operation Ajax") together with the CIA.
Cast People interviewed by the makers of Coup 53 include: Ralph Fiennes as Norman Darbyshire Walter Murch as self Taghi Amirani as self David Talbot as self Stephen Kinzer as self Ervand Abrahamian as self Malcolm Byrne as self
The documentary also draws on footage from an episode of the 1985 UK TV documentary series End of Empire, produced by Granada Television.
Release Coup 53 world premiere was at the 2019 Telluride Film Festival, and it also played the 2019 BFI London Film Festival. At the 2019 Vancouver International Film Festival, It was released to the general public on 19 August 2020 with an online release in the US, UK, Canada and Ireland through 118 theaters using the platform Eventive. In mid-September 2020, Coup 53 was pulled from its digital distribution platforms. Coup 53 became available again on digital platforms on 18 December 2020.
Reception Coup 53 has received universally positive reviews from critics. As of July 2022, of the reviews compiled on Rotten Tomatoes are positive, with an average rating of . This puts Coup 53 in an elite group of only 112 films in all cinema history to have gained an 100% rating (with forty or more positive reviews and no negatives). The website's critics consensus reads: "Rife with the political intrigue promised by its title, Coup 53 is a spellbinding documentary with the heart of a thriller." The critical aggregator Metacritic awarded the film a score of 80 indicating "generally favorable reviews"
Coup 53's positive reviews began with Todd McCarthy's Telluride Film Festival review in The Hollywood Reporter on September 4, 2019, in which he said the film is "passionate and fearless, enormously benefitting from the involvement of the peerless film editor Walter Murch, and has the air of something that grew from an impudent home movie into a magnum opus." During the 2019 BFI London Film Festival where Coup 53 had its British and European Premiere Allan Hunter of Screen Daily called the film "as compelling as a John Le Carré novel or a Costa-Gavras classic" with "pulse-racing discoveries" and that director "Taghi Amirani's forensic focus and expert storytelling create a vital docu/drama with the potential to reach far beyond history buffs and conspiracy theorists".
Upon the film's commercial release on 19 August 2020, Ann Hornaday of The Washington Post gave the film four out of four stars and wrote: "It's a nonfiction film that functions precisely as all documentaries should: as a piece of doggedly investigative, personally transparent reporting, and as simply great storytelling, full stop." Later, Hornaday included Coup 53 in her list of best documentaries of 2020. In Empire, Ian Freer wrote: "Part political drama, part history lesson, part gripping spy thriller, Coup 53 gives what has been relegated to a small footnote in Iran's story the big, expansive, dramatic treatment it deserves."
In his NPR Fresh Air review, John Powers said: "An exhilarating... historical documentary that unfolds with the pace and complexity of a thriller." Peter Bradshaw of The Guardian wrote "This powerful and authoritative documentary by the Iranian filmmaker Taghi Amirani is as gripping as any thriller." "Thrills and chills as spectacular Fiennes reveals a very British coup," said Charlotte O'Sullivan in the London Evening Standard. "This unclassifiable yarn...feels like a thriller." She added: "Coup 53 is stranger than fiction and a terrifying reminder that the past never goes away." Joe Morgenstern of The Wall Street Journal called Coup 53 "a formidable achievement" adding "As history lessons go, this is a powerful one in which a wealth of interviews and stunning graphics have been pulled together, with extraordinary attention to detail, into an intricate but lucid whole." Tim Robey of The Daily Telegraph called Coup 53 "A labour of love, the film is premium detective work. Taghi Amirani's documentary, years in the making, unearths an astonishing confession from a British intelligence officer." From Tara Brady of The Irish Times: "A maddening, gripping portrait of how imperialism works. Coup 53 is almost as concerned with the film-making process – the lists, the dead ends, the searching – as much as it is with political history."
Making Coup 53 The New York Times Critic's Pick critics Ben Kenigsberg said: "It takes a certain kind of documentary to make sifting through old papers look exciting, but in Coup 53, the director Taghi Amirani sets an expectation of suspense early on. Across time and space, a single, consistent story emerges. For a narrative shrouded in subterfuge, that's a considerable achievement. Both as a detective story and as a deep dive into a world event whose consequences linger, it is bracing, absorbing filmmaking."
Comparison to John le Carré's work
Larushka Ivan-Zadeh in The Times gave the film 5 stars and said "Ralph Fiennes appears, lending a wry le Carré air to proceedings as an enigmatic MI6 agent with an explosive testimony. The sheer level of granular detail could overwhelm without Amirani's boundless to-camera energy. He transforms sifting through dusty plastic bags and filing cabinets into a thrilling detective case." Danny Leigh's review in The Financial Times said "This is not some dry piece of historical revision. Amirani's passion is palpable from the start and he peppers his film with twists and reveals that would make John le Carré smile." "It's like taking a swim in John le Carré's brain" said Dave Calhoun in his Time Out review titled "Shadowy spies and questing journalists abound in this taut, compelling doc". Marc Savlov in The Austin Chronicle wrote "Coup 53 is a historical documentary that plays more like All the President's Men had it been written by John le Carré with a dash of Costa-Gavras and Manchurian Candidate by John Frankenheimer." Savlov went on to say "a spellbinding rabbit-hole of a movie, rife with outsized characters and conspiracies galore, but also and perhaps, more importantly, an eye-opening window onto the U.S. and Iran's current state of mutual enmity."
Awards Coup 53 won the Audience Award for Most Popular International Documentary at the Vancouver International Film Festival. The film received a nomination for Best Documentary, in the British Independent Film Awards. Coup 53 was nominated for the Grierson Award for Best Feature Documentary at the 2019 BFI London Film Festival. The film won Best Documentary at the MIFF Awards in Italy in December 2020. The film won the Audience Award at the 14th edition of Cinéma Vérité Festival in Iran in December 2020. The film won the Crystal Phoenix Award for best documentary at the 39th Fajr Film Festival in Iran in February 2021. Walter Murch's editing won the Best Edited Documentary award at the United Nations Association Film Festival in October 2021.
Controversy In August 2020, before the film's digital release, a controversy arose around a key claim in Coup 53 concerning MI6 spy Norman Darbyshire. Granada TV producers publicly challenged a claim reported in The Observer on August 2, 2020, that an interview with Darbyshire had been filmed for End of Empire - Iran but subsequently removed from the programme under pressure from the UK government
In a letter to The Observer on August 16, producer Mark Anderson and researcher Alison Rooper stated that Darbyshire had refused to be filmed and that the interview transcript quoted in Coup 53 was an off the record research interview
Their letter pointed out that in 1985 an article published in The Observer the day before End of Empire - Iran was due to be broadcast on Channel 4 confirmed this. It stated that the MI6 agent did not appear in the Granada programme "as he declined to be filmed to protect his anonymity".
On August 18, more doubts emerged over Coup 53 censorship claims when Correspondent World suggested one of the film's key interviewees was now unsure about his testimony.
The day after Coup 53'''s virtual release on August 19, 2020, through 118 theatres in the UK, US, Canada, and Ireland using the video-on-demand (VOD) platform Eventive. The film received over forty 100% positive reviews from the mainstream press including Washington Post, The Telegraph, New York Times, Wall Street Journal, NPR, The New Yorker, The Financial Times, The Guardian, etc. Excerpts of these were posted on Coup 53's official website with links to the original full reviews. The day after Coup 53's virtual release, End of Empire producers Norma Percy, Mark Anderson, and Alison Rooper issued a 13-point press release which was published on the website Correspondent World outlining how Coup 53 misinterprets the evidence and accusing Coup 53 of using clever editing to "wrap the coup story around a false narrative....calling into question our professional integrity." The press release pointed out that Coup 53's film makers had failed to show them a cut of the film after its completion in 2019 despite several requests, adding that "If they had done so we would have provided them with the evidence that Darbyshire never agreed to be filmed; that the cameraman is misremembering the identity of the official who spoke very openly; that Mossadegh’s grandson is muddling Darbyshire with Sam Falle; and that Granada TV itself shared the Darbyshire interview with The Observer as pre publicity for our programme." The press release was followed by a written request to Amirani from End of Empire producers, including renowned executive producer Brian Lapping, urging him to re-edit his film to remove "untrue claims that we were and still are party to a coverup/censorship in a broadcast documentary."
Denial of Access to Archive and Demand for Changes to Coup 53
On 14 September 2020, ITV archive, who had inherited the archive of the End of Empire series, refused to extend the use, previously granted, of fourteen minutes of archive footage used in Coup 53. The reason given was that the use of the relevant archive material damaged the reputation of Granada TV, the producing entity. As a result, Amirani and Murch had to pull their film from distribution after a month to avoid copyright infringement. In an email to the 118 partner cinemas Amirani said "I have some sad news. Due to an archive licensing issue that has been brought to our attention today, we must withdraw the film from all public screenings until the issue is resolved with the copyright holder."