Historical films have traditionally been evaluated according to their fidelity to documented events, chronological continuity, and accurate reconstruction of the past. Within this paradigm, anachronism has generally been regarded as a historical error that undermines authenticity and weakens the credibility of historical representation. However, postmodern historiography has fundamentally challenged this assumption. This study approaches historical representation not as the transparent recovery of an objective past but as a narrative and audiovisual process through which history is reconstructed from the perspective of the present. Within this framework, historical films are evaluated less by their correspondence to archival facts than by their capacity to generate historical understanding through cinema. Accordingly, anachronism ceases to function merely as a chronological inconsistency and becomes a productive historiographic strategy that establishes dialogue between heterogeneous temporalities, enabling critical reflection on historical experience and contemporary historical consciousness.

Although cinematic historiography has attracted increasing scholarly attention, the historiographic function of anachronism remains insufficiently examined, particularly within Iranian cinema studies. Existing research has largely considered anachronism either as a narrative technique, a formal characteristic of modernist cinema, or a departure from historical accuracy. Less attention has been given to its epistemological function in producing historical meaning through film. This absence is especially notable in discussions of the Iranian New Wave, whose experiments with fractured temporality, self-reflexivity, intertextuality, and skepticism toward unified historical narratives correspond to the characteristics Rosenstone identifies in postmodern filmic historiography. Addressing this gap, the present study examines Parviz Kimiavi’s The Mongols (1973) and O.K. Mister (1979) as examples of postmodern historiographic cinema in Iran. Rather than treating these works simply as formally experimental films, the article argues that their systematic use of anachronism constitutes a historiographic principle that reorganizes the relationship between past and present.

Employing qualitative textual analysis through a case-study methodology, the research examines how Kimiavi mobilizes anachronism as an interpretive and critical mechanism. Within Rosenstone’s framework, anachronism is understood not merely as the combination of incompatible historical elements but as an organizing logic that brings temporal layers into dialogue. Through this strategy, historical films do not attempt to reproduce an immutable past; instead, they reveal historical continuities, expose structures of power, activate collective memory.

The analysis demonstrates that The Mongols and O.K. Mister employ anachronism as the foundation of their historical imagination rather than as an isolated stylistic device. Both films collapse distinctions between historical periods by combining heterogeneous temporal layers, intertextual references, cultural traditions, and media forms. They employ these strategies toward historiographic objectives, revealing two approaches to historical rewriting within Kimiavi’s cinema.

The Mongols constructs historical reflection through a self-reflexive cinematic form that destabilizes chronological continuity. Instead of reconstructing the Mongol invasion as a completed medieval event, the film places it alongside the expansion of television and mass media in 1970s Iran, transforming historical conquest into an allegory of contemporary cultural transformation. Television becomes analogous to the Mongol invasion, suggesting that domination may operate through communication technologies as effectively as through military force. By combining traditional performance practices, cinematic images, documentary references, and modern broadcasting technologies, the film creates a multilayered temporal structure in which cultural memory, historical experience, and media history coexist. Its self-reflexivity reveals that history is always mediated through representation. Through references to Iranian storytelling traditions, Kimiavi’s previous works, European modernist cinema, and broader film history, The Mongols produces an open textual structure that resists fixed interpretation.

O.K. Mister employs comparable historiographic strategies but directs them toward a explicit political critique. The film assembles historically incompatible figures, including William Knox D’Arcy, Cinderella, folkloric characters, consumer commodities, and contemporary media technologies, within an intentionally impossible temporal framework. These juxtapositions expose the continuity of colonial domination by connecting early twentieth-century oil concessions with the cultural, economic, and ideological transformations of late Pahlavi Iran. Colonialism appears not simply as territorial occupation but as a persistent system operating through politics, consumer culture, language, fantasy, and everyday experience. Through parody, exaggeration, and violations of historical realism, the film reveals how colonial power survives across different historical moments while demonstrating the relationship between cultural dependency and economic domination.

The study concludes that both films organize historical representation through interactions among diverse temporalities, semiotic systems, and cultural references, yet they differ in their historiographic orientations. The Mongols emphasizes ambiguity, reflexivity, and interpretive openness, while O.K. Mister uses similar strategies to construct a more direct critique of colonialism, modernization, and dependency. Therefore, anachronism in Kimiavi’s cinema should be understood not as a formal error but as a historiographic strategy capable of producing alternative forms of historical knowledge. By challenging linear narratives and foregrounding the constructed nature of history, these films exemplify Rosenstone’s concept of postmodern historiography. Beyond reassessing Kimiavi’s contribution to Iranian New Wave cinema, this study demonstrates the value of historiographic anachronism as a framework for exploring the relationships among history, memory, media, and cultural identity.