After last night seeing the very good Stop-Zemlia (2021-also reviewed) I decided to dig deeper into the online line-up at the Edinburgh International Film Festival. Finding gems like Sun Children (2020-also reviewed) at online festivals last year,I was thrilled to find an Iran New Wave film at Edinburgh,leading to me listening to the ballad.
Note: Review contains some plot details.
View on the film:
Closing the door behind Mina speaking to her husband for the last time on Death Row as he is killed for a crime which he did not commit, co-writers (with Mehrdad Kouroshniya) /co-directors Maryam Moghadam & Behtash Sanaeeha are joined by cinematographer Amin Jafari in mourning with Mina by displaying a sharp eye for draining the colour from the household,
Stepping back to capture the withdrawn state of the family, the directors superbly line the dour walls across the screen in refined Iran New Wave (INW) long-take wide-shots, which are spread across the state Mina and her daughter are in, as Mina fights for the Government to officially state in public the wrongful death they sentenced her husband to.
Detached from receiving moral support due to the stigma that being a single mother (due to becoming a widow) has in the country, co-writer/co-director Maryam Moghadam gives an astonishing performance as Mina, whose subtle anguish facial expression and downcast gaze is cleverly used by Moghadam to capture the weight of sorrow on Mina's shoulders.
Introducing the family as their lives get torn apart on Death Row, the screenplay by Kouroshniya/ Moghadam and Sanaeeha magnificently dips into the aftermath to make thoughtful criticism on society in Iran, (where the film is banned) via every attempt made by officials to refuse to admit that Mina's husband was innocent and wrongly given the death penalty.
Struck by the refusal of those officials to admit they got it wrong, the writers intelligently expand on this refusal, to wider society, where everyone Mina puts her hand out to, brushes it away due to her being a single mum/a widow, with the lone sign of support crumbling in a harrowing twisting ending in the final lines of the ballad.
