Hard to imagine a more timely moment for writer/director/animator Ali Soozandeh’s (Iranian-born, now living-in-exile) look at religious hypocrisy & sex (passion or paid-for) in a tradition-challenged modern Islamic State. Structured in the form of a loosely bound relationship relay among a cross-section of twenty-somethings: prostitute with kid in tow; techno-musician pushing against old forms & disinterest*; pregnant wife with two illegal abortions behind her; deflowered fiancée desperate for a hymen repair job; not the slice of Iranian life you’d expect. Sexual bartering used and abused by taxi drivers, landlords & pencil-pushers, rising all the way up to doctors and judges. A constant threat from government enforcers, zealots with military or religious agendas, fronting a second line of offense behind the daily offers of bribes in cash and/or sexual favors. A societal pressure cooker that forces top talent to flee and those who can’t to take to the streets . . . as currently playing out. All of it despairing and believable, presented in a sort of modern digitally-assisted rotoscope technique (filmed live-action manipulated into animated form) that has its pluses (buildings, backgrounds and objects well suited to the system with interesting color-sweetened transitions) and minuses (people in general and faces in particular losing individuality the closer you get). A pity as some of the twists and reveals that connect separate story strands together lend a satisfying puzzle-solving aspect, but only deliver a fraction of the emotion they might have. Worthy, in a good way; but Soozandeh has yet to put out another feature.
ATTENTION MUST BE PAID: *Ali N. Askin’s wide-ranging score a big plus.
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