Just like its puzzling English title, Like a Fish on the Moon (Balaye aseman zire ab), the drama of young parents whose 4-year-old son has stopped speaking, is a mystery that screenwriter-director Dornaz Hajiha seems happy to pose but is unwilling to solve. It’s a pity because the story is intriguing and the pace builds nicely; the setting in a wintry, snowy Tehran is perfect for the film’s muted tone and the acting is intense but balanced. Everything leads one to anticipate a meaningful conclusion that never arrives. After its festival bow in Karlovy Vary’s Proxima competition, this first feature sold by Hong Kong’s Asian Shadows could face an uphill climb to find audiences, though its strong points should make it a calling card for the director’s future projects.
Many good stories, of course, have open endings that leave their protagonists’ fates up in the air, but the point is that their narrative tensions have been equalized in some way so it doesn’t matter. Here, it matters a lot, and one leaves this short 78-minute feature feeling it is unfinished.
Perhaps it is the director’s extensive work on short films that spills over here in an aesthetic of minimalism in telling a story through the bare essentials. This strategy plunges the audience into a first scene shot entirely in closeups of Haleh (Sepidar Taherti) and her husband Amir (Shahdiyar Shakiba) in the office of a pediatrician/child psychiatrist, while the doctor who is doing all the talking is deliberately kept off-camera. In any case, we get the gist that their cute little boy Ilya has a problem, and we can assume that Amir and Haleh are educated, middle-class types if they’ve gotten this far. They smile as they assure the doctor they’re happy couple with a normal sex life and assure him they don’t fight in front of their son, Ilya. Why on earth has he not said a word for the last two weeks?
The doctor has ruled out their concern that Ilya has a physical impediment of some sort, but he points out that Haleh does all the care-giving while Amir only interacts with the boy a little after he comes home late from work. As therapy, the good doc proposes a change of parental behavior. From now on, and until Ilya starts talking again, Amir will be the sole care-giver and Haleh will not talk to the boy. Reluctantly everyone agrees, and a new era begins in the household.
Ilya still doesn’t talk, but he does look puzzled. The camera concentrates on Haleh, hovering very close on Taherti’s troubled face, full of frustration at being deprived of her maternal role and more anxious in every scene. Amir shows he’s a modern dad by taking his new duties in stride, but is blind to the storm brewing inside his wife, until it comes bursting out in frayed tempers and raised voices. There’s none of the polite but strained dialogue that couples tend to have in Iranian films, but a more realistic glowering, followed by an unreasonable outburst.
A powerful scene unfolds in a hospital where Ilya has been taken to be examined “top to toe” for possible physical problems. This is at Haleh’s insistence and against Amir’s will; their battle for control ends in poor Ilya having a terrifying CT scan of his head while his parents create chaos. But this is just practice for a late scene on a wintry beach, made frightening in its emotional intensity by the two main actors as Haleh surrenders to her inner demons and Amir responds by letting the stops out. Ilya, as usual, is the victim. It works as a climactic moment, but the story still needs more to feel satisfying.
Tech work is strong in establishing crucial atmosphere, notably D.P. Alireza Barazande’s use of color as a source of visual chaos when they drag Ilya, uselessly, to a busy speech therapist, and the withholding of color under a heavy snowfall that seems to mute the world. Vahid Moghadasi’s sound design is similarly functional and mood-making.
Director, screenplay: Dornaz Hajiha
Cast: Sepidar Taherti, Shahdiyar Shakiba, Ali Ahmadi
Producer: Ehsan Rasoulof
Cinematography: Alireza Barazande
Editing: Ashkan Mehri
Production and costume design: Dornaz Hajiha, Diba Hajiha, Siamak Karinejhad
Sound: Vahid Moghadasi
World Sales: Asian Shadows
Venue: KVIFF Film Festival (Proxima competition)
In Farsi
78 minutes
