Two films which were recently shown at international film festivals and dealt with love in totally different ways. Showing at the Shanghai International Film Festival was Abbas Amini’s I Am Here! (Man Inja Hastam), which deals with repressed love.
I Am Here! (Man Inja Hasatm), a story of repressed love in an oppressed society; and The Musician (Navozande), a tale of lost love. One of the topics which has been prevalent on the Iranian news for the past few years has been the widespread strikes by workers of a number of Iranian factories. The reasons for these strikes have ranged from non-payment of salaries to lack of health insurance and other hardships; some of which were allegedly caused by corruption. Some of the strike leaders were arrested and jailed and, in general, the authorities did not show much tolerance for such acts.
For his fourth feature film since 2016 (all of them co-written with Hossein Farokhzadeh), director Abbas Amini uses the topic of workers strike as a frame, within which he tells a story of repressed love. I Am Here! starts with the discovery of a body on the shore of a river in the southern Iranian city of Abadan. The body belonged to Amir, a worker in a ship building factory and one of the leaders of an ongoing strike initiated due to non-payment of overdue salaries. The official cause of death is suicide, though this is not bought by other workers and Amir’s brother Ibrahim (Afshin Hashemi) and his mother. The management need a “no objection” letter signed by Amir’s closest relatives to close his file. In a meeting with Amir’s wife, Salwa (Shirin Esmaeeli) and Ibrahim, they explain that Amir was a contract worker, not entitled to a permanent worker’s benefits. However, they are prepared to pay a considerable sum out of charity to help the family. Ibrahim is totally opposed to either signing anything or receiving any blood money. The management, however, sense that Salwa seems prepared to accept the money and plan to lean on her.
Parallel to the events concerning the strikers, is the central theme of the film, that of repressed love. Ibrahim is in love with Salwa. He has been for a long time. Even though Amir is dead now and there is a tradition in that part of Iran for a man to look after and even marry his deceased brother’s wife, Ibrahim cannot bring himself to tell this to Salwa. The only person Ibrahim confides in is a prostitute that he sees some afternoons in a field out of town (wisely, Amini keeps her off camera as it would plainly be ridiculous for the prostitute to be fully veiled in a sexual encounter with a client). But Ibrahim’s love for Salwa is an open secret. In a memorable scene, Salwa confronts Ibrahim to either declare his intent or get out of her life. The appearance of another suitor for Salwa turns the screws on Ibrahim.
Amini has successfully created the tension in the atmosphere which has put undue stress on the main characters. Ibrahim is already under considerable self-inflicted stress from suppressing his love and desire for his late brother’s wife. He comes under further pressure from the factory workers who suspect him of making a deal with the management and selling them out. Broke and with a sick cow as his main asset, he is reduced to hunting boars and selling their meat, even though eating and selling boar meat is forbidden in Islam. Salwa is a young and beautiful widow with unfulfilled hopes and desires of her own. The money offered by the management would go a long way in helping her achieve some of her wishes.
I Am Here! is greatly helped by excellent performances by Afshin Hashemi and Shirin Esmaeeli in the two main roles. Amini has also made very good use of the locations and I liked his practice of keeping some speaking characters off camera where their appearance would have lessened the impact of the scene. The cinematography (Mohammad Hadadi) and editing (Sepideh Abdulvahab) are also noteworthy.
The Musician (Navozande), which was shown at the Toronto International Film Festival, is a 15-minute animation by Reza Riahi. It tells the story of two Persian lovers who are brutally separated by the invading Mogul army in the 19th century. The man, who was a musician, was thrown off a cliff and the woman taken to serve as a maid in the palace. Years later, an old and blind musician is brought to play in the Mogul court. Can he be the lover who was thrown off a cliff?
The Musician is a lovingly constructed and drawn animation. Riahi, who has worked as art director on the acclaimed The Breadwinner (2017) has blended a tender love story with a little bit of history and enhanced it with lovely classical Iranian music (by Saba Alizadeh, the son of the famed Iranian musician, Hossein Alizadeh).
© 2020. UniversalCinema Mag.