A little light

Iranian cinema has accustomed us to small-scale stories set against complex backdrops. Right from the very first director to appear on the scene – one of Marco Müller’s successful ventures – Abbas Kiarostami’s "Dov’è la casa de mio amico?" tells the story of a school notebook accidentally left in a classmate’s satchel, and the journey to return it whilst avoiding punishment. Jafar Panahi’s The White Balloon tells the story of a little girl who goes out to buy a goldfish (it is New Year in Iran) and loses her money. Then came the darker stories, and a director like Panahi has to shoot his films in secret, if not from prison. Last year we saw Ali Asgari’s Divine Comedy, the semi-clandestine screenings of a censored film (his previous work: Kafka in Tehran, and for once the term ‘Kafkaesque’ was not used inappropriately). Now we see a medical clinic in ruins: the doctor has lost his job – he treated the wounds of young protesters – and wants to take his own life. Like the protagonist of Abbas Kiarostami’s Taste of Cherry (1997): he had found the spot and dug the grave, and was looking for someone to cover his body with earth. Our doctor has a family, so he wants to warn his relatives. One by one, the film takes the time to stage a few conversations – tragic in substance but ‘normal’ in form. Sitting at the table, drinking tea, chatting about this and that. A film stripped down to the bare essentials, and yet it works.