Fresh insight into life in contemporary Iran pours in with Terrestrial Verses, an appealing black comedy about bureaucracy that doesn’t go terribly deep into the country’s problems but does a good job describing a general sense of frustration and injustice.
We all know the pain of a close encounter with a petty bureaucrat who has the power to make life difficult for some nonsensical reason, based on White Rabbit logic guaranteed to drive the victim mad. Multiply that by a factor of ten and welcome to contemporary Iran, where young co-directors Ali Asgari and Alireza Khatami describe the surreal moments of everyday life in Tehran with infallible humor and barely hidden outrage in Terrestrial Verses (Ayeh Haye Zamini). A must-see for Iran-watchers, these sardonic skits hit the bull’s-eye of a repressive Big Brother society that tries to regulate the most private matters of its citizens, from religion to love for one’s pet. After its bow in Un Certain Regard in Cannes, this short 77-minute comedy is bound to be a hot crossover date for Films Boutique.
Though it looks like it was made with more dash than cash, the film is cleverly lit by cinematographer Adib Sobhani to describe the numerous Kafkaesque situations in which ordinary Iranians are treated with scorn and arrogance. The locations are barely visible, but they are carefully decorated to represent impersonal public spaces where all privacy has been banished.
Each episode features a different beleaguered suppliant who has been called in to interact with authority. In each case, the camera is fixed at the unseen interrogator’s eye-level and pointed at the poor person who outlines his or her need, hoping for a prompt and favorable reply. The first up is a young father who appears at a window to register the birth of his son; behind him there stretches a long corridor. As soon as he is asked what name he and his wife have chosen for the baby and he says, “David”, you know there is going to be trouble. “What country do you live in?!” demands a disembodied voice in disbelief, who suggests the name Davood would be more “Islamic”. It is a funny skit because of the father’s obstinate refusal to consider any other name, and there is certainly a suggestion that he and his wife could be Jewish.
Contrast this to a later sketch in which an out-of-work construction worker comes into an employment office for a job and is bullied by an offscreen tormentor into reciting Quranic prayers and mimicking hand-washing – all senseless acts meant to humiliate him. The man’s desperate need of a job is obvious from the outrageous demands he submits to, making this the most touching episode. Through a window behind him we see a building crane with its head bowed.
Extreme bullying reappears in the well-acted story of a young man who goes to get his driver’s license. Before it is granted, the unseen bureaucrat on the other side of an unseen desk asks him about his mental health and demands he read the poem by Rumi he has tattooed all over his body. It ends in a bizarre and ambiguous striptease that evokes uncomfortable laughter, not to mention a lot of sympathy for the cool guy whose body and soul are being invaded.
If there are any winners on the non-authority side, they are two females. One is a schoolgirl who has been caught riding to school with a boy on a motorcycle. Just when the principal’s voice threatens to call her father, the girl turns the tables with maximum aplomb. The other, more symbolic case is a girl of 7 or 8 in jeans and a Mickey Mouse shirt, whose mother (offscreen) takes her to a clothing store to buy her first veil. And a big veil it is, wrapping her up like a nun from head to toe. But while mom goes to pay, the girl takes everything off and puts her pink headphones back on over her long golden hair, dancing to the rhythm. It is hard to imagine girls like this one growing up under the restrictions their mothers did, at least not without a struggle.
In fact, the last shot brings the stories to a resounding close. The person in the shot is a very old man who seems to be sitting in his office high over the city – but maybe not for long. Though Asgari and Khatami speak in highly symbolic images, there meaning is crystal clear and is underlined by the take-no-prisoners aggression of a full-blast techno track.
Directors, screenplay: Ali Asgari, Alireza Khatami
Cast: Gohar Kheirandish, Sadaf Asgari, Majid Salehi, Hossein Soleimani, Ardeshir Kazemi, Farzin Mohades, Sarvin Zabetian
Producers: Ali Asgari, Milad Khosravi
Cinematography: Adib Sobhani
Sound design: Alireza Alavian
Production companies: Seven Springs Pictures (Iran), Taat Films (Iran) with Tell Tall Tales, Cynefilms
World Sales: Films Boutique
Venue: Cannes Film Festival (Un Certain Regard)
In Farsi
77 minutes
