The Pictures in a Lost Mirror

On Bahram Beizai’s TRAVELLERS

Kamyar Mohsenin

“Mirror does not flatter” as Jung indicated. But it always does not reflect our own true face. Sometimes it immediately finds a path into the unconscious, into the hopes and into the dreams. Thus as observed in Plath’s “The Magic Mirror”, it reflects the double personality hidden beyond the persona. In Bahram Beizai’s TRAVELLERS, the faces behind the masks are magically portrayed in a lost mirror.

With a Brechtian devise, Beizai starts his film when Mahtab (Homa Rousta) turns to the camera and says, “We are going to Tehran to attend my sister’s wedding. But we never reach there. We will be all dead in an accident on the road.” Everyone hears the news in disbelief, but trying to compromise with the so-called truth, they start to show their true faces behind the masks. Everyone does so, but Grandma (Jamileh Sheikhi) who believes that they are still alive as the mirror used in the weddings of the daughters of the family in the different generations is not found on the accident location. The house also changes from the setting of a wedding to a platform for a funeral.

Most of the film is formed in the complicated mise-en-scène for a group of characters, inspired by shi’ite passion plays, Ta’zieh. This way a ballet of the movements of the performers and the camera brings to life with some unique aesthetic concepts. In these scenes, all the characters, but Grandma, are hidden behind their masks. But in the solace of two characters, the true faces are ultimately revealed. Enhanced by deep and sincere emotional performances, the solace scenes are devised without any figurative and decorative facades in static medium shots. Relied on the strong dialogues written by Beizai (one of the most powerful playwrights in the Iranian history), the solace scenes come to an unforgettable duet when Mastan (Simin Maotamed Aria) talks to her husband, Mahu (Majid Mozaffari), about the hidden secret of their life.

The film is badly hurt when these two concepts are forgotten – for instance, in the playful movements of the bride, Mahrokh (Mozhdeh Shamsai), in the first scenes, and her nightmare sequence – however there were some critical attitudes towards the performance of the main actress, it is evident that the creative ideas were not in place to shape these scenes as powerful as the rest of the film.

TRAVELLERS depicts the truth about a nation accustomed to wear masks when appearing in the public even in the critical circumstances – something much more realistic than all the Iranian docudramas offer to their audiences…

K.

First film by Mazdak Mirabedini, FOOTWORK (2017), is an indie Iranian film in its essence. Different in form from any product in Iranian mainstream and art film industries (even in casting; even in the opening with a lengthy medium shot of a young couple sitting in a car, back to the camera), it focuses on none of the controversial, contempo issues – such as immigration, regional tensions, problematic lives of artists and filmmakers, financial crisis, etc. – affecting the lives of its central characters. It does not trap the whole thing in the box of a conventional, simplistic story, desperately trying to over exaggerate all the misfortunes of the people. It makes a miniature painting of a big city called Tehran. It seems that each scene is shaped as a detail in a gigantic tableau of the modern metropolis. In each detail, the city is depicted as a hiding place for vulnerable, helpless people fearing that betrayal and dishonesty will be exterminating their lives; as a ring for the exhausted individuals challenging a cruel, savage contender called life.

In such a composition, it is more important to lay out the shots in a bigger frame rather than to make counterpoints with them. So instead of the rhythm of the events, it is vital to capture the expressive moments in the lives of the individuals – such moments as the picture of the lonely man remembering the past and talking to their beloved ones, looking at the vast landscape of the city; and two fragile women understanding each other and sitting on the steps in the nocturnal silence of the street. In FOOTWORK, life of a city is reflected in the lives of its inhabitants. Meanwhile the film is enhanced by the rhythmic pieces formed on formalist concepts of montage, mostly accompanied by some kind of a fusion of occidental and Iranian music. Thus the film finds a way to give an overall view to the circus of the real estates in the big city; and to track down the main character wandering around the streets searching for all his lost hopes.

K.

In the beginning, it is so hard to digest the illogical sequences of improbable incidents – especially because of their contrast to the naturalistic imagery. But gradually the film starts to take shape when portraying the Iranian X Generation today. Surrendered to any waves coming from very different directions, the young characters are absolutely ready to take great risks for nothing. But there is something truly important in their lives. Evidently a cell phone means everything to them: a beloved to sing for; a friend to rely on; an eye to see through it; etc. Therefore in the absence of logical relationships, the hollowness is underlined. In other words, characters’ absurd relation to each other and their surroundings leads to the portrayal of hollow human beings and hollow society. Thus the city turns into a circus. The young characters are depicted as the pitiful clowns performing in the squares and joining people on the streets on joy day – however to complete the bizarre atmosphere of the circus, a lion is brought on a street to be washed down before the very eyes of the spectators. A Felliniesque focus on a lost generation in a city, MALARIA turns Tehran into a megapolis full of wonders and wanderers.

It is a journey beginning with two youngsters on the road. The girl is on the run and the boy is her lover. They accidentally meet a young musician who takes them to Tehran in his van. In Tehran, they say goodbye to the musician and go to stay with one friend who accidentally turns to be a bad man waiting for an opportunity to assault the girl. In a quarrel, the bad man is accidentally injured and believing that he is killed, the two youngsters run away. The girl accidentally remembers the cell number of the musician. The musician takes them to his house, but the boy, searching for his necklace, goes back to the street and is accidentally arrested by the police. The musician accidentally knows someone who can help them: a cousin who is a chador-clad young girl. After adventurous days and nights in the city, the two youngsters hit the road again, but it seems that the girl is pregnant and doomed to her destiny…

Dealing with the young generation in his trilogy, Shahbazi has come a long way in his study on contemporary society. With the sympathetic approach in DEEP BREATH, the neutral observation in TRAPPED and the contemptful depiction in MALARIA, it is clear that the generation distance is working at some level, but it seems that he is also composing a requiem for the lost ideals of a doomed generation. Unlike his other works, Shahbazi utilizes two different visual structures all through the film: naturalistic images through a quivering camera in portraying the characters; and dreamful views through the cell phone camera in portraying their POVs. The film is enhanced by its final sequence: stylized shots from a boat on a river, driven by the water in different directions, and going toward the cliffs inevitably – an allegorical reference to a lost generation the director tends to depict…

K.

After ABOUT ELLY, A SEPARATION and THE PAST, it seemed that Asghar Farhadi had come to a point to use an impressive premise deliberately: confronting the viewers with a moralistic dilemma when facing the sublime subject of death.

Returning to the theme of honor and dignity (once again after FIREWORKS WEDNESDAY), Farhadi proves that he is still preoccupied with the traditional teachings in his society as well – however, interestingly, the film is interpreted in two different ways in his homeland and in international scene. In international scene, most of the viewers believe that the director attempts to portray a stereotypical oriental man: aggressive, violent and illogical when it comes to anything relating to his honor. In Iran, most of the viewers feel that it is just a justification for the rightful actions of a man seeking vengeance for his lost honor.

The opposite interpretations are originated from director’s altering approach to the subject. Before the final showdown, THE SALESMAN is trapped in a Hitchcockian absolutistic plotline. There is a great opening, when the characters, running away from a collapsing building, are masterfully tracked by a fluid camera. Then it turns to be just a simple twist for moving to a new house, not a sign of ongoing unsafety. Therefore when the young couple is settled in a new apartment, the woman is assaulted in the bathroom – simply due to the fact that the previous lodger was a notorious woman. Then there is just one question coming to husband’s mind, “Who’s the assaulter?” Most of the time, the film follows the pattern of moving from one clue to the another, but since there are no journeys implicated for each new discovery, there are no clues about the characters at all. They remain as they are: noisy, aggressive husband and silent, passive wife. The wife eccentrically resists any advice for referring to the police station and filing a complaint – though it is questionable that what is her motivation and how the police are absolutely absent when the injured woman is taken to the hospital. Relying on all of the circumstantial factors, the husband sees no way but to seek biblical justice.

The paradoxical interpretations are also nurtured by the paradoxical characterization of the male hero: an intellectual on the stage (performing Arthur Miller’s DEATH OF A SALESMAN) and in the classroom (showing Dariush Mehrjui’s THE COW for the students) and a traditionalist at home. So unlike the archetypal hero in Masoud Kimiai’s QAISAR (a milestone in history of Iranian cinema marking the beginning of a new wave along with THE COW in 1969, Farhadi’s hero seems to be a castrated version – however his reactions are the same and the intellectual gestures are not harmonized with his character. So essentially there is no big difference between the characters played by award-winning Shahab Hosseini in A SEPARATION and THE SALESMAN – despite the fact they are supposed to represent men coming from two different social classes. Unlike BIRDMAN (2014, Alejandro González Iñárritu) which uses a cycle of recurring situations on stage and in personal life to focus on the nuances in characterization and gradual changes (of course due to its surprising camerawork) which proves to be more stunning rather than convincing, Farhadi’s film does not proceed as it is supposed since there are no changes in the interiors and just some sudden hysterical reactions devised in the script in order to remain on the safe side, act solely as a neutral observer and give way to opposite interpretations inside and outside the country.

So apart from trivial central theme, unattractive stereotypes, undefined relations between the personages and the places, non-existent inner journeys, lack of psychological depth, naïve complications and clues, the film severely suffers from its total abstraction from its society leading to its failure in presenting convincing motivations. Therefore all the references seem to be futile and all intellectual gestures hollow – especially when it comes to Farhadi’s Willy Loman who is absent all through the film and extracted from both story and society, there is no difference to be regarded as a client or a salesman. The director does not portray the assaulter in the society. With reduction of the motivation to some meaningless sentences, the director gives the freedom to any viewer to rely on his own imagination to create the character. If Miller’s low man is detailedly portrayed in a time of transition, Farhadi’s old man is not characterized by any specifications.

In the final showdown, Farhadi does not choose to follow the resolution according to the absolutism ruling all the film. In the last minutes, he disappointingly tries to go back to the relativism which is surely the strength point of his earlier works. He tries to look at everyone from a different point of view – though it seems too late to judge the sinner differently. But coming back to his own world, he succeeds to deliver some images of fear and trembling of his hesitant characters – the images which are totally trivialized all through the way from opening to showdown.

K.