A Film a Week - There Is No Evil / Shaytan vojud nadarad

previously published on Asian Movie Pulse

Out of the total number of death penalties conducted globally in the year 2017, over half were done in Iran. The percentage has been dropping since, but Iran is still in the lead in that regard. Another thing, as we learn from Mohammad Rasoulof's newest film that just premiered at the official competition of Berlinale and is one of the favourites for prizes, is that death penalty is rarely being executed by the professional staff, but in most cases the military conscripts (as military service is compulsory for all the country's men, without having it completed they are unable to be employed or to have a passport), which means that the regular citizens are being made accomplices in the country's crimes against humanity.

Rasoulof's film There Is No Evil deals with the issue of the death penalty and the ethics behind it in a series of short, loosely connected stories. The first one follows a seemingly ordinary man Heshmat (Ehsan Mirhosseini) out and about doing his daily routine: coming back from work, spending time with his family, taking care of an elderly family member, bickering with his wife, shopping in supermarket. The nature of his job that we learn at the very end of the segment is a shocker that will set the theme for the rest of the film. The second story follows Pouya (Kaveh Ahangar), a young soldier tasked for the first time to carry a death penalty by kicking chair under the convict's legs. He is opposing murder on ethical grounds, figuring out how to get transferred, but is surrounded by his mates whose reasoning is that resistance is futile and as unethical as the murder, since someone has to carry it on anyway. The only option is a bold, but desperate attempt of escape to a new life with his girlfriend with the Italian resistance song O, Bella Ciao as a leitmotiv.

The third story starts also with a man who is also seemingly on the run, but Javad (Mohammad Valizadegan) says that he is on his regular weekend leave from the army, going to his girlfriend Nana's (Mathab Servati) birthday in order to propose to her. However, the village is mourning the death of a beloved teacher who was also an activist that was executed for his political views, and Javad has to face the consequences of his actions and moral choices. The fourth story, revolving around a couple of former intellectuals and possibly resistance figures and their niece Darya (Baran Rasoulof, the director's daughter) who visits the country of her origins for the first time (or after a long time). The death penalty dilemma here is extended on other living being rather than human, but is over-shadowed with a not-so-secret-secret within a family that opens some new philosophical questions about giving and taking life and/or identity.

Rasoulof's storytelling is intriguing enough to make There Is No Evil more than a mere collection of thematically connected shorts, which is obvious from the way one segment moves to another and the suggestions of interlinks that might connect the dots between the different segments in a more significant fashion. That might not be the case, there is a clear sense of ambiguity around it, but it makes the film as thought-provoking as it gets, and not only concerning its primary topic and the ethics and the politics behind it.

When it comes to directing, it is clear that, unlike his colleague Jafar Panahi, who turned to more of a low-fi approach due to the government ban, Rasoulof is determined to remain faithful to his standards of filmmaking, despite the same type of ban imposed on him. The style remains pretty much the same, it is a proper art house film, professionally shot and edited, with a lot of thought put to it, with a clear sense of purpose in every one of the stories. However, the question arises how much control can he keep, being forced to film in secrecy or to delegate some of his work to his assistants, and it sometimes shows.

The acting is usually spot-on, but there are some missed cues that might be attributed to the director's absence from shooting, and the unevenness of the segments and the parts of the segments could also be dictated by that fact rather than story itself or the ability of the editor, or even by the fact that There Is No Evil is an omnibus film by nature. There are also some slight pacing issues, since 150 minutes of runtime sometimes seem a bit excessive, especially with the last story succeeding and failing to make a point or reach catharsis at the same time.

Nevertheless, disregarding all the alibis, There Is No Evil is a very good film that makes up for the slight missteps with its cleverness, integrity and soulfulness. Rasoulof is here to stay at the film festival circuit, no matter the ban. Good news!

A Film a Week - The Alien / Namo

previously published on Asian Movie Pulse

This year's edition of Berlinale is not riddled with political scandals like it was the case one year ago, when films were pulled out of the festival even if they were selected for the official competition, or barely made it to the festival after all. It was an "interesting" year for Chinese cinema, with the government fortifying itself by the means of censorship. This year's biggest attempt at scandal also comes from Asia, but from a different part of the continent - from Iran. Nader Saeivar's directorial debut "The Alien" was set to premiere at Forum sidebar of Berlinale, and the principal question was would Saeivar and his crew be able to leave the country and travel to Berlin. They made it.

"The Alien" opens with an establishing shot typical for Iranian cinema, a long, fixed camera shot of a shop's front in the afternoon. In the corner of the shot, there is a car that seems quite ordinary. The static shot converts into a slow zooming into the shop itself, showing the ordinary activities in the neighbourhood: the local teacher comes to buy something on his way back to work, the owner is arguing with his son, some other neighbours drop by. When the action moves outside, the parked car is still there.

Rinse-repeat for the next day. And the day after that. The car is still there. And in Iran, it could mean just one thing: the people inside it are on a stake-out mission. Being the new lad in the 'hood, and possibly even new to the town, the teacher Bakhtiar (Bakhtiyar Panjeei) becomes the prime suspect among his neighbours to be the reason for the car being there. His withdrawn, even secretive attitude does not help either, and his refusal to conduct himself according to the unwritten rules of the community (instead of cooperating, he basically ignores the car and the people in it) could put the final nail in his social reputation coffin.

The pressure on him multiplies, not just in the neighbourhood, but also at his job, where he needs to pass the final exam and the suitability interview in order to get his permanent teaching license, and in his own home where he is constantly between his ailing father and his not exactly patient wife (Sevil Shirgi). Will he be able to handle it all or will he become a victim of other people's paranoia?

There is a lot of it in the context and the subtext of this slow-paced film. Firstly, Bakhtiar and his family come from the ranks of Kurdish minority in an ethnically mixed unnamed town. And minority and ethnically mixed environments are more prone to get some more unwanted attention from the central government in dangerous mix of theocracy and bureaucracy, which Iran is. Finaly, in a paranoid, controlling society, everybody has some kind of secret to keep, not just Bakhtiar, but also his wife, all the neighbours, friends and acquaintances. The difference between him and the rest is that he does not want to pretend any more.

Nader Saeivar is a screenwriter by trade, and for his work he was already awarded, for instance in Cannes for the script he co-wrote with the legendary dissident filmmaker Jafar Panahi for the latter's film "3 Faces". Script-wise, this is a cooperation of the same two people and it proves to be the best aspect of the film, as new and new layers come to light in perfect timing. However, some of the dialogue lines are overly explanatory, which, combined with the theatrics in acting, results in off-key line delivery.

It also shows that, unlike Panahi for whom the filmmaking is simply the calling, Nader Saeivar as a filmmaker needs more practice in order to to learn the aspects of the job he has not mastered yet. He knows how to recognize an important story and to tell it in an intelligent way, but the narcoleptic pace, the insisting on concentric circles-type of structure and overly expressive acting by most of the cast members pretty much annul the positive aspects. With better directorial control and some more determined editing, "The Alien" would not be just a decent, yet politically important film that shows its maker's potential. It would be a properly good one.