The Wasteland directed by Ahmad Bahrami won the prestigious award for the Horizons (Orizzonti) section at the 77th Venice International Film Festival. At the same time, the film won The International Critics Prize (FIPRESCI Prize) which rarely happens.
It tells the story of a bricklaying factory, in the outskirts of Tehran, that is about to be shutdown, but its boss has not paid the workers’ wages in a long time. The workers have come from different provinces and regions of Iran like Kurdistan, Azerbaijan, Fars and etc, and they are working for their boss without being paid and the boss keeps promising that they will get their salaries soon. There seems to be no way out for them and they have no hope until something happens. There is a strong symbolic meaning in The Wasteland through which we can examine the forty year history of Iran while the film itself is not political in any subtle way. We had a chance to interview the director following its success at Venice.
Mamad Haghighat, UniversalCinema Magazine (UM): Mr. Bahrami, I saw your film a while back and I really liked it; its aesthetical style, its rhythm and mise-en-scène, reminded me of the films of the Hungarian director Bela Tarr. As for its content, we see your take on all the aspects of the life of brick factory workers as the factory is about to be shutdown. We see how the workers are stuck working in the factory despite the harsh economic situation and being exploited by the owner of the factory, and they eventually have to leave the place.
Ahmad Bahrami: First of all, I must say that I was first inspired and influenced by Sohrab Shahid-Saless, especially his film Still Life. Then the inspiration continued with Abbas Kiarostami, and reached its peak with Bela Tarr. We have had masters of filmmaking in Iran like Shahid-Saless, and Golestan, Mehrjui and etc. We owe everything to these filmmakers.
(UM): Did you study cinema or did you work as an assistant director before directing a film?
Ahmad Bahrami: I started working at Cinema Javan in Karaj in 1991 when I was really young, I was 17 or 18 years old, and we started making short films with other students. Then I enrolled at a film university in Tehran, where I studied filmmaking. I was also interested in theatre, and really liked visual arts. After receiving my bachelor’s degree, I started working in cinema more seriously and directed three short films. I also made a few documentaries for television, and worked there for a while.
(UM): Your first feature film, titled Panah, was set in the desert and it followed a young boy who guides the tourists in the area. The film was shown at the 2017 Cannes Film Festival, and then it had its official premiere at the Mediterranean Film Festival. Your second feature film, The Wasteland, was made with a more professional cast and crew, and it is set in a brick factory in the south of Tehran. We have had good documentaries and feature films made about brick factories, like Dance of Dust by Abolfazl Jalili. What made you interested in this topic? Did you conduct research about it?
Ahmad Bahrami: Well, my father worked for a company as a worker for thirty years. I have seen and experienced the life of workers all my life. I always wanted to make a film about them. I did more than 600 hours of research about these bricklaying factories. I also read some books and visited more than 100 of these factories. I visited these places for over a year and talked to the people there. Of course, I added a few things here and there to turn it into a more cinematic experience.
(UM): The film begins with a beautiful scene where the factory supervisor, who is trusted by the boss, brings ice for the workers and distributes the ice between them. He has been working at this factory for 40 years, and we see it time and time again that he’s a friend of these workers who are working under harsh conditions. Can we interpret this scene in this way and say that while these workers are like slaves working for the boss, they need water to be able to continue living?
Ahmad Bahrami: From a visual standpoint, I wanted to emphasize that they are working in that hot summer by showing the droplets of water dropping on the ground; this is the dirt that they are using to make adobes, and one day, the very same adobes are used again in the factory. This scene has a unique visual effect. One thing I need to mention is that I wanted this film to be set in an unknown time and place. People speak Persian and they wear Iranian clothes, but I wanted to focus on Iran in the 50s. I hope that the audience has his or her own take on the film, whether historically or otherwise.
(UM): Aside from good mise-en-scène and cinematography and great acting, the film also has unique dialogues. The only thing different is the monologues of the boss. He repeats the same things over and over again whenever he gathers the workers in front of his office. Initially, those who are watching the film think to themselves that it would have been better if the filmmaker didn’t put so many repetitive lines in his film, but we have also seen this repetitiveness in the works of Shahid-Saless, and it means something in the end.
Ahmad Bahrami: The boss is being grinded by life himself, and he has to keep promise things to his workers, just like how politicians keep repeating the same promises to people. Even our intellectuals are stuck on repeating themselves. Perhaps the whole society has been plagued by this repetitiveness and saying the same things over and over again. It’s like a circle that never leads anywhere. It keeps circling itself. That’s where the idea came from.
(UM): In an earlier version of your film that I saw a long time ago, the length of the film was more than two hours, and the version that was accepted by the Venice Film Festival was 1 hour and 42 minutes. Talk about this if you want to. Of course, we can explain to our readers that throughout the years, many filmmakers re-edited their films after consulting with other people. There are many examples like Time of the Gypsies by Emir Kusturica, and many more. It also happened in the Cinema of Iran. For example, in the catalogue for 1992 Cannes Film Festival, Kiarostami’s Life, and Nothing More… was 107 minutes long, but after consulting with the person who selected the films for the festival, 17 minutes of the film were cut short, and three months later at the festival, the length of the film was 90 minutes. During the festival, the film was received quite warmly and won two awards.
Ahmad Bahrami: You’re right. Although there were some scenes in the film that I really liked, but after talking to a few friends who had seen the film, we decided to work with the editor, Sahar Yavari, and re-edit the whole film, and now we are really satisfied with the result. What is important is for the film to be seen. I must thank Mr. Saeed Bashiri, the producer of the film, and other crew members like the cinematographer (Masoud Amini), and my advisor Mrs. Azizi, the cast members and all those who worked hard for this film. I’m really grateful.
(UM): As for the last question; your film was selected for the main competition at San Sebastian Film Festival, which is a highly regarded festival in Europe. But Venice Film Festival also showed interest in selecting the film for the Horizons section which has a separate set of juries, and it is also prestigious in its own way. Many well-known filmmakers have won this award, and the list of winners does not only include first and second films of young filmmakers. How do you feel about being selected for the Venice Film Festival?
Ahmad Bahrami: Mr. Ali Ghasemi, the international distributor of the film, submitted my film to San Sebastian Festival and it was accepted, but after consulting with him and the producer, we preferred the Venice film Festival, and I’m really happy with the decision. I did not want to make the film for festivals but Venice film Festival is a great opportunity for the film to be seen. What is interesting is that a film by my friend and former classmate Shahram Mokri, titled Careless Crime, is also selected for this section, and I would like to congratulate him for it.
