'District Terminal' (2021), the Iranian-German co-production written and directed by Ehsan Mirhosseini and Bardia Yadegari, is a film that demands attention and concentration from viewers, but which will reward those who invest their patience and let themselves be absorbed in the universe created by the authors. It's no easy trip. I found very little information about the film and its directors, but from what I read I understand that it was filmed during the pandemic. Even if the script and the idea of the film existed before, I still have the impression that it would not have been made or it would have been made differently if it had not been for the pandemic. It is certainly viewed differently by spectators. The fact that the world that they describe is also threatened by a devastating plague may be a coincidence, but this aspect resonates especially after what the whole planet has experienced and is experiencing in the last two years. Dystopia in dystopia, of course in very different forms.
It is not very clear whether the world described in 'District Terminal' is pre-apocalyptic or post-apocalyptic, and this is because the hero of the film, a poet living in a devastated Tehran, constantly oscillates between reality, hallucinations caused by drug use and nightmares. An ecological catastrophe has happened or is happening, the city where the hero lives is under the threat of war and under the pressure of a totalitarian regime that censors its poets and does not leave other option to those who want to live differently than emigration. The poet lives with his mother, his wife is in the United States and makes vague arrangements for his emigration which do not seem to help him much. He spends his time between hopeless discussions with friends, collective detox sessions in an hesitating attempt to overcome his drug addiction, sterile interactions with a woman friend and with his teenage daughter, already an addict, and hallucinations induced by use in various forms of drugs, moments when the dead mingle with the living and reality meets the nightmare. From time to time, in dreams or maybe in reality, pandemic police raid to catch and punish those who do not comply with the quarantine conditions. The atmosphere is one of despair, of hopelessness, of waiting for the inevitable end.
This gloomy and pessimistic film is very well made. The pandemic may have been originally conceived as a metaphor, but we've learned in the last two years that the entire planet may be sick. This concept is very well translated in images. Navid Moheymanian's cinematography conveys the feeling of loneliness and lack of horizon. Many frames seem abstract compositions, there are always walls that block the visual field and freedom of movement, nature seems to have been defeated by invisible forces. The actors' performance is perfect, as we have become accustomed to in other Iranian films, with that calm usually accompanied by a restrained tone and a vocabulary respectful of the rules of courtesy, which camouflages passions and threats. 'District Terminal' is a beautiful movie, a muffled shout and a warning.
