Dream Maker

Dream Maker

Still from Dream Maker (2023)
Oldenburg Film Festival

VERDICT: A man uses virtual reality to experience and retouch the memory of his deceased daughter in this poignant, thought-provoking Iranian sci-fi.

Memory is not just unreliable but amendable in Mohsen Mehri Darouei and Milad Kiaei’s Dream Maker.

Science fiction is a genre famed for its ability to hold up a mirror to humanity in a way that recontextualises private and social conundrums through high-concept drama. In this instance, notions of simulation and virtual reality meld with questions of memory and subjectivity to create a quietly challenging film about the potential role of technology in recording personal history. For the unnamed man at the centre of Darouei and Kiaei’s short (played by Rez Robatiazi), a deep-seated personal trauma can be slowly massaged from his mind through the use of VR memory that can be customised and uploaded back into his head.

The unnerving potential of such a narrative might seem a million miles from the early scenes of Dream Maker, which are laden with the golden hour sunshine and saccharine aesthetics of nostalgia. But this is exactly what those images are – they are the memories of a father, thinking about his young daughter. Now, he lives in what can only be described as a bunker, his only connection to the outside world coming through time spent in a headset, reliving happier times. It transpires that the man was – accidentally – responsible for a terrible accident that saw his daughter killed. His VR sessions are the dreamier moments of her final day but now he can upload new additions, like a fluffy cuddly toy, to embellish the memory and round off its razor-sharp edges.

The two visual styles of the film – representing the almost-sepia memories and the dark, neon-lit present – don’t just provide clear delineation but seem to ooze with the dependency that the man feels for the light offered by this increasingly re-imagined past. There is a kernel of truth to the idea that we narrativise our actions and our memories; as humans, we keenly omit or reshape actions that don’t comply with our internal sense of self. In this case, the man takes it further using external tech to re-write history and replace his true memories, allowing an unreal past to spill into his future. The premise of Darouei and Kiaei’s film might be fantastical, but the human desires at its centre are anything but. It makes for a film that intentionally wallows in sentiment, while also questioning our demands and capabilities to make such dreams a reality.

Directors: Mohsen Mehri Darouei, Milad Kiaei
Cast: Reza Robatjazi, Hananeh Karami
Producers: Mohsen Kiaei, Abbas Abbasi
Screenplay: Mohsen Mehri Darouei
Cinematography: Hosein Jalili
Editing: Amin Salmani
Set decoration: Shiva Asgharan
Costume design: Parsa Khanloghi
Production: Noir Karen Film (Iran)
Venue: Oldenburg Film Festival
In English
14 minutes