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Reviews
Farar az Taleh (1971)
A great Iranian film , unfortunately unknown in and out of Iran
Farar az Tale is an unknown film out of Iran. Even in Iran nobody remembers of this beautiful little masterpiece. There are so many successful visual and musical devices all along the film. The first one is just at the opening and before the opening credits. A man is dropped on the street. Another man tries to see if he is still alive. In finding that he is not, he turns his head towards Morteza (Behrooz Vosooghi) and by his eye expression lets him know that. All that in silent cinema and taking only 23 seconds. That is truly cinema, The art of image! Then the opening credits start, during which we see Morteza in prison, his moustaches are little by little growing. This is economy of great cinema. Using the time of the credits for letting us know that he is in prison and making us feel the length of his stay. The proper plot will begin now, when he comes out of prison and looks for his beloved woman Mehri (Nilufar). Another great moment of the film is when Morteza is looking for a solution to find somehow the 10 000 tomans that he needs to give to the man who married his beloved to get her divorce. Now wandering in the city and its outskirts he walks, stops and sits and looks at people working. Great music of Rubik Mansuri covers this sequence, and still shots or pans get dissolved to each other and gives us impression of boring time that Morteza is experiencing under the hot sun of the South. Iranian cinema is full of so great films... It is a pity that they don't get any chance to be known... The actors, Behrooz Vosooghi, Davood Rashidi and Abbas Nazeri are absolutely great.
Pickpocket (1959)
Dark and poor universe of Bresson's characters
In Bresson films in general and in Pickpocket in particular:
1-The narrative is reduced to some lines. It looks like bones without any flesh (e.g. Inspired by Dostoyevsky's 'Crime and Punishment', Bresson's plot has nothing with the rich psychology of the latter)
2-The characters are reduced to lines and are made some kind of one-dimensional human beings. They are poor in traits and they have not any ambiguities as real people have in their real life. 3-The setting is the least. They are usually simple walls instead of everything. There is no decoration on the walls and over the tables. 4-The actors are non-professionals. Besides, Bresson was asking them not to play. He did not let his actors to deepen the characters. 5-Even Bresson did not call them actors but models.
The universe of Bresson is dark. The universe of Bresson is intentionally poor. People don't enjoy their life. They are sad. They are poor in culture and in human relationship. Something comes and saves them at the end of the film. In Pickpocket it's the love of Jeanne (Marika Green) which saves Michel (Martin La Salle) in prison and gives him hope. A love that appears like a light on Jeanne's face... The reason for all that is in Bresson's religious faith in Jansenism...
Yek Etefagh sadeh (1973)
It is the story of routine life of a ten years old Iranian schoolboy living with his mother in Northern coasts of Iran.
Yek Eteffagh e Sadé looks like an Italian new-realistic film, something of the kind of Bicycle Thieves by Vittorio De Sica. It is even a raw realistic film rather than realistic. The camera is still and the takes are very long. There is no close-ups and the most of the film is made by long shots and very long shots. The action is very long (e.g. the real duration of schoolboy's taking his food)and repeated many times (the boy takes in his bags fishes from his father's bag every day, every night he brings water to his mother). Shahid-Sales used to show the boring routine life of ordinary people with these devices. In 1974, year after Yek Eteffagh e Sadé he won Berlin's Silver Beer for his Still Life, again a story of routine...