|
Shabhaye roshan - White Nights (2003) Directed by: Farzad Motamen Date of birth: 1957, Tehran, Iran Writing credits: Saeid Aqiqi, Farzad Motamen Music: Peyman Yazdaniyan Country: Iran Language: Farsi Color: Color Runtime: 105 mins. Released: 2003 Genre: Drama |
A young university professor, who leads a quiet and reclusive life and fills his life with reading and teaching literature, meet a young girl who has altered the course of her life for the sake of a man she loves. She has promised to meet her beloved at a certain spot on four consecutive nights exactly one year after their last meeting.
The young professor's encounter with the young and passionate girl during four nights brings about significant changes in both of their lives and beliefs. Now concepts like love, literature and expection have a new meaning for them.
Cast:
Mehdi Ahmadi
Hanie Tavassoli (as Haniyeh Tavassoli)
Mohsen Shah Ebrahimi
Hilda Hashempour
Hossein Fallah
Masume Eskandari (as Massumeh Eskandari)
Mir-Ali Akbari
The Importance of Being Motamen
By Mohmmadreza Fakhrabadi
film@tehranavenue.com
>
August 2004
Everyone acknowledges that diversity has roots in competition, which in turn may lead to a betterment of quality, utility, and novelty. The Iranian cinema needs competition to attract the attention of viewers. There are many reasons why Iranian cinema is not doing well with its intended audience. Here I will mention one, using as my point of departure the latest film of Farzad Motamen, Bajkhor (or, as it was translated into English, "Ransomer"). Motamen's third-screened film explores a genre seldom visited by Iranian directors, and in this way highlights one of the shortcomings of this cinema.
Years ago the well-known film critic Khosrow Dehqan proclaimed that Iranian cinema worked under only two genres: social melodrama and war cinema. Today, war cinema has lost most of its followers on either side of the camera, making social films all the more significant. The fact that the Iranian cinema is limited to work with social genre and its offshoots will no doubt result in the weariness of this genre (much like war cinema). It is here that the importance of directors like Motamen and scriptwriters like Saeed Aqiqi becomes apparent.
Motamen, who is a graduate of film studies and knows the industry well, has seen his name repeated within film magazines and circles in the past year. His presence, however, given his non-typical outlook, has not been without raised eyebrows. To me, the importance of Motamen's films – haft pardeh (Seven Screens), shabha-ye rowshan (Bright Nights), and bajkhor (Ransomer) – regardless of their shortcomings is in working with ignored film genres. The three films mentioned above are in different genres. Seven Screens was never screened, but it apparently takes its inspiration from movies of Hal Hartly and Jean Luc Godard. It is obvious that Motamen's approach is unique in Iranian cinema.
Romance is another popular genre missing from Iranian cinema, despite its potential appeal to Iranian viewers. Bright Nights is a romance. Tiresome dialogues, endless recitation of poetry, and a stereotypical ending damage the movie, but it is nonetheless a robust movie able to attract knowledgeable viewers who don't care as much for the homogenizing glitter of special-affected Hollywood.
Ransomer, on the other hand, is a film noir. Alongside romance, it deals with the closest whims and desires of human being. As such, it is a popular genre among directors who want to explore urban themes of lust, temptation, and sin. No doubt making a movie in a genre that established, formed, and developed in America requires tremendous adjustments for a native of this country. These adjustments are not easy to implement and they have not been done so successfully in Ransomer. The film has two major problems:
First – the director's inability to realize the femme fatale type. This is partially due to limitations imposed on directors in the Iranian cinema and partially to the poor selection of the actress (which could elucidate another shortcoming of Iranian cinema – lack of diverse actors and actresses).
Second – change in the fundamental motives of the characters (which in film noir is usually greed, lust, passion, etc). In Ransomer "revenge" has stolen the light and become the movie's driving force, which seems to be misplaced.
On the other hand, Bajkhor has two important characteristics:
A) The director's courage in working with lesser known genres, and
B) The novelty of film title design, which has been done tastefully, although the end credit counterbalances it.
All this shows that the filmmaker has been attempting to create something novel for his viewers. It is not important if the film doesn't do well at the box office. Film noires seldom do. What is important is that Motamen has created a film that makes use a new genre in Iranian cinema.
More films created by Farzad Motamen
|
Search |