This is perhaps as close to the Italian NeoRealists of the Fifties as the Iranian New Wave has yet got. Its low-life milieu, the struggle for survival in the big city, the impartial cruelty of fate, all these elements are strangely comforting to any aficionado of the post-war shakeup, although any sense of comfort is at odds with the barren cold of Tehran in the dark months.
The director took the scenario rather than a literal narrative, from a book, 'Safar' (The Trip) by Mahmoud Dowlatabadi, and much of the colour from a poem, 'Winter', by Mehdi Akhavan Saless. The poetry acts well as a framing device, pulling the story closer together as an iconic statement instead of a collection of interconnected images.
Khatoun (Mitra Hajjar) is left with a granny and daughter to keep while her husband (Hashem Abdi) leaves on the train to seek work; simultaneously another man, Marhab (a Brando-esquire Ali Nicksaulat) also looking for Something Better, arrives. He falls in love with Khatoun, strikes up a friendship with Ali, (Said Orkani) a mechanic and small-time pimp, finds work, but as this is intended to be a reflection of real life, where the bus will not necessarily come just because there hasn't been one for an hour, nothing is that simple - life is shaped by an accumulation of little accidents, and if anything changes it will not be where it was expected. The constant in this story is Khatoun: the men are blown around her like snowflakes as they strive to survive. Pitts has said that he feels men seem to live more in a dream world, while making the decisions, but the women have to deal with the facts. When it came to shooting he describes his technique as setting the circumstance for a particular actor or 'non-actor' to slip into one piece of action and then capturing the magic.It works well, and added to that are the particular aesthetics of the snowy landscapes, the medina and the rusty, funky garage heaps. He wanted to create an Iran that was timeless - it's more than that - it could be anywhere, too. And bleak though it may be, it is not unremittingly so. After everything there remains a little hope. CLIFF HANLEY
