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We Are All Fine - (Ma Hameh Khoubim) (2005) Directed by: Bijan Mirbagheri Date of birth: 1968, Tehran, Iran Writing credits: Mojgan Farah Avar Moghadam Music: Hamidreza Sadri Country: Iran Language: Farsi Color: Color Runtime: 91 minutes Released: 2005 Genre: Drama |
Director Bijan Mirbagheri seems to have taken a cue from American independents in this tale of a dysfunctional middle-class family whose private animosities explode when a video camera comes into their midst. Oldest son Jamshid has been abroad for six years, leaving his parents, siblings, wife and young daughter adrift. When Jamshid sends word that he would like his family to prepare a video tape for him, their initial attempts at cheer soon devolve into bitter arguments and secret confessions. Dexterous cutting between video and 35mm as well as a powerful ensemble cast fuel this moving exploration of the consequences of emigration for the people left behind.
Producer: Mohammed Reza Takhtkeshian
Screenwriter: Mojgan Farah Avar Moghadam
Cinematographer: Mehdi Jafari
Editor: Saeed Shahsavari
Cast: Ahoo Kheradmand, Mohsen Ghazimorad, Parviz Shahinkhou, Leila Zare
2005, 35mm, 91 minutes
Filmmaker and UCLA alum Erik Friedl found We Are All Fine (Ma hameh khoubim) to be “a searing self-portrait of present-day Iran, brilliantly presented in microcosmic form through the all-seeing eye of the commonplace video camera. The eldest son, Jamshid, who has apparently been out of the country some six years, has requested a video portrait of his family. In the hands of the younger son, the video camera proves to be the catalyst that gets members of this impossibly dysfunctional family talking for the first time—an ingeniously simple device on the part of the screenwriter. I also found very effective the intercutting of the more ‘objective’ 35 mm footage with the gritty, smeary video images of each family member baring his or her soul. There was finally so much emotional bloodletting that I wasn’t surprised when the matriarch of this unraveling household—read: the governing mullahs—decided to pull the plug and demand a take-two: ‘We are all fine’.”
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