The Last Snow: a stunning drama from Iran presented at the Red Sea Film Festival

After its successful premiere at the 40th Fajr Film Festival in Tehran, where it garnered numerous accolades including the Special Jury Prize, Best Actor, Best Cinematography, and Best Makeup out of nine nominations, The Last Snow is now presented at the prestigious Red Sea Film Festival. Directed by Amir Hossein Asgari and completed in 2022, this film represents a triumph in contemporary Iranian cinema.

This captivating feature is set in a small village in the Sari region of Iran, during an exceptionally harsh winter. Yousef, a forty-year-old veterinarian, possesses a strong work ethic that is both admirable and contradictory. Abandoned by his wife due to injuries sustained in a workplace accident – when a barn caught fire, and he suffered burns while attempting to save the cows – he has become a silent and solitary man. Above all, he demonstrates a constant internal struggle.

He finds himself caught in-between various dichotomies. He exists halfway between tradition and innovation, between old and new generations, between authority and freedom, between legality and illegality, between shared morality and personal ethics. However, he never compromises between right and wrong, as such concepts do not exist in the narrative of this film.

In a plot structure that seamlessly intertwines multiple narratives without ever becoming tiresome or disjointed, chaos appears to reign supreme. Not in the sense of confusion, but rather the absence of a clear path to follow. 

The Last Snow presents humanity through a dual lens, or rather an ambivalent gaze.

On one hand, it deeply explores the earthly aspects of life. It provides a glimpse into society – in the broadest sense, any society, with its gossip, pettiness, and conflicts, as well as its highest forms of sharing and community. More specifically, it delves into the rural Iranian society of the early 2020s.

The genre can be classified as both mystery and drama, as it revolves around the disappearance of a young girl, the daughter of Khali, the protagonist’s friend.

The film centers on the village’s search for her, whether it be her body or her still-living self. It also delves into the obsessive question plaguing her father’s mind: did she run away because she was promised to a man twice her age while she loved another, or was she devoured by a wolf?

These creatures have been reintroduced to the area by an ardent environmentalist woman who nourishes and shelters them, sparking a feud with the local cattle farmers due to the obvious incidents that can arise from the release of such “wild” animals.

This represents one of the film’s secondary narratives, the legal and social conflict, in which Khali opposes the woman in every aspect, whereas Yousef grows somehow fond of her. While she embodies freedom, independence, environmental awareness, and a challenge to traditional Iranian values (for example, she left her own man and does not seem to need another), Khali is the epitome of tradition.

However, in this profound and delicate film, the characters are never depicted in a stark manner; there are no black and white distinctions, only shades of grey.

Thus, even Khali, who is attentive to the village gossip and concerns about his reputation, explanations to be given, and the “shame” that his daughter’s potential escape could bring upon him if it became known, is simultaneously a desperate father mourning the loss of his daughter, facing the possibility of such horrible grief, and driven to madness by the prospect of not discovering the truth.

All of this constitutes what we call the “social” perspective of the film.

But on the other hand, The Last Snow offers a godlike perspective, a divine gaze (where the divine appears entirely absent within its narrative).

A universal touch that unifies mankind throughout time and eternity.

The sense of loneliness, abandonment, and anger embodied by Yousef – a solitary, modern, and tormented hero (much more than initially perceived) – is seemingly mirrored in the figure of the wolf.

The wolf is also solitary, but not burdened by this condition. It is self-isolated, yet capable of existing within a pack. Occasionally ferocious but never angry, and undoubtedly independent. This is evident in the film’s final, incredibly powerful shot, as the cured and released wolf traverses the dark, snow-covered night, revealing not the path to righteousness but at least a way back home for the lost hero, the protagonist Yousef. Thus, saving him.

In a way, Hossein Asgari rewrites the divine. In a human world seemingly dictated by chaos and suffering, in a world where the missing girl’s body is ultimately found – frozen but not torn apart by wolves because she did escape the oppression of humanity – in a world that appears devoid of God, perhaps there is still a glimmer of light.

That light is nature, embodied here by the wolf, whose presence is opposed by nearly the entire village due to its disruptive nature. But it is from this disruption that true order can be restored; the natural, animalistic order.

In this film of immense power in every aspect – visually, narratively, in its performances, and directorial craftsmanship – Iranian cinema once again asserts itself as a leading force, with Amir Hossein Asgari as an author of great stature.

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