"Zemestan" ("It is Winter"), one of the two Iranian movies in this year's competition section of the Berlin Film Festival, certainly did not satisfy everybody of those who were around to see it and did not win any of the major prizes either. That was, in my opinion, only partly due to the film's pessimistic undertones. To a much higher extent this negative reception should be explained by the fact that mainstream viewers and critics are still not familiarized enough with the essence of Iranian film-making and therefore unable to fully grasp the value of certain techniques which are typical for this kind of cinema.
For example, the correspondent of Spain's principal newspaper EL PAIS, after having complained about the apparent lack of "swiftness" of the movie, even went a step further and denounced "this endogamous style of a certain type of Iranian cinema which pretends that ellipses or silences are worth more than a thousand words." But is this really all that bad? Or is it not, on the contrary, an artistic achievement of the highest value? An achievement which can best be understood in that memorable "two-second-scene of happiness". But for those who haven't seen the film or don't remember it well enough, I might just recap the storyline a little bit.
It's all about the current situation of the Iranian underclass, where people find it difficult to find work and position themselves in life. Same problem as elsewhere, we might say. But here conditions seem to be particularly crude: It is winter, and the world presents itself just as that, a cold and inhospitable place. A father of a small family has lost his job and emigrates to another country, leaving his wife and little daughter behind. He does not come back, does not write any letters, nor does he send any money – his mission seems to have turned out to be a complete failure. A migrant worker arrives from the North, looking for some work as a car mechanic, but here in the South conditions are equally bad. And still, he somehow manages to find a small job which is poorly paid. He is without a woman, a situation which in Iranian society apparently is particularly despised and placed little value on. He meets the emigrant's wife, finds out that this woman lives alone with her daughter and concludes that she must be a widow. He tries to court her, but she is not an easy prey.
Then, suddenly, the magic moment arrives. You can see that they are talking together in a friendly way, from afar, without being able to hear what they are saying. The scene barely lasts two or three seconds, and then, in the next scene we are already at the registry office, but we see nothing more than the corridor. For another two seconds.
Of course, it is not necessary to be told any more than this. All the rest wondrously develops in your mind. Every spectator can invent his own version of how the two fall in love. And we remember: the same happens or happened in plenty of other Iranian movies which have been acclaimed in the past. Just take Kiarostami's unforgettable "Through the Olive Trees" where cinematographic proceedings present themselves in an even more radical way, for not only don't we witness the moment of love between the two protagonists, we don't know either if a love scene has taken place at all. Therefore we become the most autonomous spectator possible, creating our own film ending, just as we think befitting.
In "Zemestan", as we have seen, the time of happiness is cut away almost entirely. What remains are ninety minutes of sadness and sorrow. A sadness that inexorably gains the upper hand over the happiness. The mechanic also loses his jobs and considers emigrating. That's when suddenly the ex-husband returns, walking on crutches, having lost a leg. He does not enter his old house, does not want to reveal his misfortune. He dies before having uttered a single word. The new husband, on the other hand, finally recoils from taking the train that could have taken him to a new destiny. He stays behind, lost in the white immensity of snow, pitiless reflection of a cold and uncaring universe. It's winter, definitely.
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