Iranian filmmaker Panah Panahi was in his mid-30s before he took up the family business in this memorable debut. Dad is Jafar Panahi, and his mentor/collaborator Abbas Kiarostami, two of Iran’s best-known/most-honored filmmakers. The pressure on your generation to be not just good, but award-winning and covertly subversive yet flying under the radar & past the authorities daunting. That challenge now met with this sui generis Road Pic about a middle-class family out for a cross-country drive: chatty sentimental Mom, cynical Dad with broken leg, twenty-something putative filmmaker son, tyrannically irrepressible kid brother, and a failing old dog needing extra stops to pee. But as we discover rolling along with such a seductive family of natural contrarians, this is no regular weekend drive, but a secretive flight to freedom for the older boy, forced to leave his country if he wants to serve his talent & pursue his dream outside of his own repressed society & country. The younger brother doesn’t quite catch on to the serious nature just under the surface, but some of his wild behavior is him picking up on the bad vibe & tension. Beautifully handled in every particular with great characters coming in & out of focus along the way, as well as Panahi’s exemplary eye for just the right shot & location for every turn and delay. Special stuff here. And at the end, quietly devastating. How recognizable these Iranians are to us compared to some other countries in the area.
DOUBLE-BILL/LINK: While most Iranian films that find distribution Stateside focus on upper-middle-class society, CRIMSON GOLD/’03, one of Jafar Panahi’s best works hangs out with the have-nots. https://maksquibs.blogspot.com/2022/01/crimson-gold-talaye-sorkh-2003.html
No comments:
Post a Comment