More character study than story-telling, Faeze Azizkhani’s The Locust (Malakh) is a hard film to dive into, but it still carves out a place for itself in the meta-verse of films about filmmaking. The travails of a first-time screenwriter who can’t stand criticism or – horrors – changes to her very personal, semi-autobiographical script demonstrate how universally traumatic the pre-production of indie films is across the world, Iran being no exception. The fact that both the screenwriter and the director are women will probably resonate more at home than it will abroad, despite a quote from Virginia Woolf’s feminist manifesto A Room of One’s Own. It made its world premiere in SXSW’s Global section and should intrigue festival audiences.
An alumna of the film workshops of Abbas Kiarostami, who acted as advisor on her first feature For a Rainy Day, writer-director Faeze Azizkhani has absorbed one lesson well: there is a lot more to movies than what appears on the screen. The Locust seems aimed at a sophisticated audience, possibly one that has been involved in filmmaking or the like, who can empathize with a heroine whose perennially jangled nerves and hair-trigger emotions make her seem like a dangerous loose wire more than a poor, misunderstood artist. Hanieh (Hanieh Tavassoli) is not easy to identify with, and the viewer’s natural push-back to her abrasive, self-centered, defensive personality makes it hard to slide into the story.
We meet her driving to a script reading while she nervously talks to herself and eyes a man on a bike suspiciously. Is she paranoid? Since the film employs the self-reflexive device of having Hanieh periodically turn to the camera and confide odd things, it’s hard to weigh her degree of neurosis. She has to pick up the director, her friend Pegah (Pegah Ahangarani Farahani), with whom she discusses the idea that “Cannes likes open endings,” a phrase one can imagine reverberating, in various forms and permutations, in script conferences around the world. Adding to the atmosphere, the production office is plastered with classic movie posters that shows the crew’s sights are set high, if rather retro: Kiarostami, Tarantino, Jean Reno, the Dardenne brothers, Casablanca, Godard, Kurosawa and Amarcord pop up in every corner of the claustrophobic office.
The reading does not go well. The actors can’t understand the motivations behind Hanieh’s characters and demand changes. She takes their criticism personally and won’t budge an inch, and tensions run high.
It turns out that Hanieh’s deceased father was a big film fan who made her dream about movies, even the dream of winning the Palme d’Or at Cannes. One of the film’s best moments is a scene in which she takes a solo walk in the park and talks to her father’s ghost (Ali Mosaffa, The Past), who roughly comforts her.
But when her overbearing mother (Amaneh Agharezakashi) shows up in the office, very much alive and making demands, the mood turns to broad comedy. As her mom blurts out all sorts of personal information in front of the film crew, it becomes clear Hanieh has been emotionally brow-beaten by a woman who has systematically chipped away at her self-confidence. It proves once again that a woman writer needs “a room of one’s own” if she is to flourish artistically – the very room Hanieh’s landlord is getting ready to kick her out of.
Director, screenplay: Faeze Azizkhani
Cast: Hanieh Tavassoli, Pegah Ahangarani Farahani, Ali Mosaffa, Pedram Sharifi, Ramin Sadighi, Amaneh Agharezakashi, Ahmad Azizkhani, Majid Azizkhani, Dorna Madani.
Producers: Manijeh Hekmat, Mahshid Ahangarani Farahani
Coproducer: Yasmin Khalifa
Executive producer: Daryosh Hekmat
Cinematography: Alireza Barazandeh
Production design: Soheil Danesh Eshraghi
Costume design: Rana Amini
Editing: Hamidreza Barzegar, Majid Barzegar
Music: Hesameddin Salehbeig
Sound: Iraj Shahzadi
Production companies: Bamdad Film (Iran) in association with KapFilme (Germany)
World sales: Irimage
Venue: SXSW (Global)
In Farsi
79 minutes
