Keeping up with Iran has become something of a challenge, at least as far as its fast-evolving society is portrayed in films like Until Tomorrow (Ta farda), the potentially melodramatic tale of a young mother who has to hide the birth of her daughter from her out-of-town parents. With the help of a loyal best girlfriend, and no help at all from men, this modern young woman confronts some of the worst facets of sexism in a patriarchal society, in a race against time that unfolds with mounting tension.
Produced by actress-director-producer Niki Karimi among others, the story — like the main characters — echoes one of Karimi’s best known films, the 1999 Two Women directed by Tamineh Milani. In Until Tomorrow, too, a pair of promising young women – one is a college student, the other some kind of writer – find themselves trapped in a web of tradition and social expectations. Twenty years on, the battle has shifted from women’s right to education and a career to their right to raise children outside marriage – a big step for anyone to confront, but a blind leap in a society as conservative as Iran’s, which is full of tricky laws that hamstring women at every turn.
And yet, having and hiding a baby is not as impossible as one might think, as Alireza Khatami’s screenplay makes clear in this concisely told, well shot and sensitively directed second feature by Ali Asgari. A well-known, much-prized short filmmaker, Asgari made his first feature in 2017. Disappearance has many parallels and could almost be read as a prelude to Until Tomorrow in its all-in-a-night structure and its daring drama about a young couple of unmarried lovers and their odyssey through moralistic hospital bureaucracy in search of urgent medical attention for the woman.
In his second film, Asgari once again casts his niece Sadaf Asgari in the tough role of Fereshteh, who is warming milk for her two-month-old baby girl when her parents call from the city they live in. Unaware that their single daughter has been pregnant and is now a mother, they announce they’re on their way to Tehran and are going to be staying in her apartment. (Parenthesis: the first thing one notices about said apartment is that it is spacious, modern and has a giant TV in the living room. Is it possible a freelance writer of catalogs can pay the rent by herself? One strongly suspects her parents are contributing the lion’s share, but the film subtly leaves this in the background as a possible tool of reprisal, should Fereshteh seriously cross mom and dad.)
This opening gambit is off-putting at first, suggesting a TV-style knock-down argument is in the offing, but Asgari and Khatami overturn expectations. Fereshteh and her friend, the pixie-ish but tough Atefeh (Ghazal Shojaei), get to work stashing the baby’s things with the neighbors on the pretext of spraying the apartment, then set off to leave the baby overnight with a woman lawyer they know and trust. But when they get there, plainclothes cops are swarming around the door: she’s just been arrested. Why? As Fereshteh glosses, “because she’s a lawyer.”
One point for the patriarchy.
Next Fereshteh, carrying her precious child in her arms, goes door to door asking the neighbors to help her out, then acquaintances and finally friends of friends. Anyone who remembers Nima Javidi’s Melbourne knows how badly passing off a baby to strangers can turn out, and to be fair, even in her desperation Fereshteh has a premonition that it’s a bad idea. Yet with the reckless, everything-is-possible invincibility of 20-year-olds, the girls go from one dangerous plan to another as Ehsan Vaseghi’s editing builds up a relentless pace. Then, at the height of the tension, suddenly the camera stops moving on Fereshteh’s frightened face and, in an extraordinary sequence in a cab, she reaches a decision that gives the film its unexpected ending.
It’s touching to see the deep friendship and solidarity projected by Asgari and Shojaei, both still growing as actresses but giving very believable, naturalistic performances. Perhaps there’s even a suggestion of something more to the girls’ relationship when they discuss moving to Alaska together “where there are no Iranians”, but that is a frontier yet to be crossed.
The two young men who are called on for help are either ineffectual and self-obsessed or, in the case of the baby’s father, dully unable to deal with reality. But the clincher in this dark portrayal of masculinity is a memorable interview behind closed doors that Fereshteh has with a powerful department head in a hospital (Babak Karimi, perfect). Patronizing and manipulative, he first refuses to let her take her baby away because she has no ID papers proving she’s the mother. Then, looming over her as she cowers in a chair with her face inches from his pants, he makes an indecent proposal: “a little tenderness” in exchange for getting the baby back. The end of the scene is once again unexpected and exhilarating.
A standout in the all-round sophisticated tech work is Rouzbeh Raiga’s eclectic cinematography, slipping from subtle pastel colors in the early baby scenes to catching the danger and urgency of the night on Fereshteh’s sharply outlined face.
Director: Ali Asgari
Screenplay: Alireza Khatami
Cast: Sadaf Asgari, Ghazal Shojaei, Reza Ranjbaran, Nahal Dashti, Milad Moayeri, Katayoun Saleki, Mohammad Heidary, Noyan Abdardideh, Babak Karimi
Producers: Niki Karimi, Raphaelle Delauche, Nicolas Sanfaute, Gaelle Ruffier, Ali Asgari
Co-producer: Jean-Charise Mille
Executive producer: Saeid Masroor
Cinematography: Rouzbeh Raiga
Production design, costume design: Mohammad Hossein Karimi
Editing: Ehsan Vaseghi
Music: Ali Birang
Sound design: Hossein Ghorchiyan
Production companies: Silk Road Productions, Novo Prod Cinéma in association with Premium Films, Taat Films
World sales: MPM Premium
Venue: Berlin International Film Festival (Panorama)
In Farsi
85 minutes
