Reviews

This beautiful, lyrical movie takes the viewer into the mind of an intellectual, intelligent woman and the way life as a mother, a woman and a professional feels to her. The internal struggle of the protagonist, which is universal and gender-blind, is made very palpable by the quite, intimate atmosphere of the movie, the great cinematography and the fantastic cast. The main character of the movie is a film maker, and the footage she takes for a future movie is very effectively used to explore the different aspects of the dilemma facing her: where should one draw the line between one's individuality and the relationships with beloved ones? Through ostensible interviews with various women, the movie explores the range of answers given to this question in a touching, intelligent way.

The fact that after 50 years, it is still a highly watchable movie, says a lot about it. It is more intelligent and interesting than almost all recent movies of the same genre you can find, and has a certain endearing feeling of innocence to it. I am not a big fan of this type of movies, but I could watch the whole thing without being bored, which makes it a good movie to watch with someone who does not necessarily share your taste in films. I liked the black and white palette, the excellent casting, the clever heist scene that keeps you guessing about what trick they will pull next, and the ending like everyone else. Watching the heist sequence makes one realize the power of silence, which is unfortunately so underused in today's cinema.

This is a lyrical, pleasantly hypnotic film about the life and times of one of the greatest Persian painters, Kamal ol Molk. The events in the movie happen as if in a dream, while following the tumultuous events of the first half of twentieth century in Iran through the eyes of the great painter. Kings come, kings go, and the weak but likable Ghajar dynasty monarchs are replaced by the rather brutal, pragmatic strongman Reza Pahlavi. The slow, rather passive, "old world" ambiance of the old system is replaced by a new, harsh, modern reality so alienating that the painter is reduced to threatening to cut off both his hands so he is not forced to put this new order of things on canvas. He retreats to the old world, and rediscovers beauty. I just wish the movie had put more of the master's paintings in context. While we see the settings in which some of his canvases are painted, there is not much reference to the rest of his body of work. Overall, I found it an enjoyable movie.

This is great mindless fun. Don't expect an intelligent satire, just relax and enjoy! The jokes might mean nothing, but they made me laugh from the beginning to the end. My favorite part is the fortune teller woman reading someone's palm and using it as a tracking device. Although the jokes might not follow a rhyme or reason, they do poke fun at several aspects of daily life in Iran that deserve ridicule. I think the Iranian viewers would particularly enjoy it, but non-Iranian viewers would also find plenty to laugh at, and a new perspective on the crazy side of the Iranian society. The movie nicely bridges the rich and the poor sides of the city, bringing the internal tensions of the society to the surface.

Five women are having lunch together, each a victim of the patriarchal society they live in. Four accept their fate with little more than a whine, while the fifth woman takes on the patriarchal establishment in a desperate fight to keep the custody of her children after the death of her husband. The patriarch in point is the grandfather of the children. After the death of his son, he decrees that the young widow, Fereshteh, should either submit to an almost incestuous marriage to her dead husband's youngest brother, or leave the home she has been living in and return to her parents', while he keeps the children. Fereshteh does not accept the deal and is thrown out of her home and her children are whisked away. However, she fights back by exercising her legal right and taking her children with her on a trip, hoping to find a way to leave the country and the grip of her former father-in-law. Her children want to be with their mother, and she has every moral and perhaps more significantly every legal right to their custody, however, it's the will of the patriarch that reigns supreme. The aptly cast Jamshid Hashempur, who looks every bit as scary and rigid as the inhuman system he personifies, states that "I am the law" and the law bends to his every wish. He does not need a warrant to eavesdrop on Fereshteh's phone conversations or even to jail her friends and abettors. Thanks to his gender, the law enforcement agencies are more than happy to oblige. The fact that Fereshteh is the legal guardian of her children and thus has every right to take them on a trip with her means nothing. At the end of the cat and mouse game, Fereshteh loses. She and the children are captured and she is thrown in jail. Never mind that she has not broken any laws, her guilt is implicit, as is the case with any disobedient woman. And nobody is happy, neither the children, nor the patriarch's youngest son, who for the first time dares to criticize his father over his cruelty. Even the patriarch himself seems to feel a sliver of a remorse for all the pain he has caused. The last scene of the movie is the most powerful: Fereshteh sitting on the floor of her prison cell, with her tear-stained face turned up toward the large shape of her tormentor looming above her head with his index finger raised in threat. However, her ordeal has not been all in vain: she is about to receive a new offer, that if she accepts she can return to her home with her children. While we are left to wonder what this offer would be, we feel that it would be a notch more tolerable than the one she had previously received. The patriarch, while still in full control, is nonetheless compelled to negotiate a new deal, and this is the unsung victory of the feminist movement in Iran.

This is a fantastic, Monty-Pytonesque comedy from the Iranian cinema. The director is a former mathematician, which is probably why everything in the movie fits so well together. The casting is brilliant, the leading character bears an uncanny resemblance to the angel of death. And it certainly takes a mathematician to make a comedy about grave yards, washing dead bodies, and dying itself. The jokes come in many layers, some probably hidden from non-Iranian viewers, for example, every time you see the clergyman, he's either being given money, or is literally sitting in the middle of a pool of money. The credits at the end of the movie are not translated properly either, here the director makes one last joke by putting a RIP or equivalent after all names, and gives special thanks to all graveyard personnel, which includes the dead people. Overall, it's an unusually upbeat movie from a cinema that specializes is somber, dark movies.