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.