Lullabies and Orthodontics in Tehran

Most feature film directors started by making short films, from Spielberg to Scorsese, from Kubrick to Kiarostami. Short films in many cases serve as the director’s calling card to feature film producers. It is usually possible to make short films with a low budget, therefore for many budding directors it’s the only way they can start making movies.

Two recent short films made by Iranian directors have been shown at various international festivals including Sundance, Sydney, etc. and received multiple awards.

Mohammad Vahdani’s Last Lullaby in Tehran is based on a short story by the noted Iranian author, Bahram Sadeghi. I have not read the original story, but I guess it’s about a man who goes to a photo studio to collect his passport photos and they keep giving him photos of someone else who resembles him.

With the limited time (and budget) available in short films, it is not easy to establish the characters, their motivations and the correct mood and atmosphere. Vahdani’s master stroke or coup de maître is to set the film at a specific time and place. The date is 13^th February, 1967, the day Iran’s most famous poetess Forough Farokhzad was killed in a car accident. The time is a few hours before the accident and moreover, he has Farokhzad in the photo studio reciting her latest poem (we only hear her, voiced by Soheila Golestani).  There are other references to real events (Shiraz Arts Festival) and real people (Lily Amir Arjmand who established Kanoon in which directors such as Kiarostami learned their trade). This simple device creates a semi-documentary feeling, making us familiar with the time and the place and also creates a feeling of sadness and loss for those members of the audience familiar with Farokhzad’s work.

The story of Last Lullaby in Tehran has a man (Alireza Sanifar, who impressed recently in Ballad of a White Cow) coming to a photo studio. He is carrying a huge wooden box containing a harp which he has imported from Siberia. We are told later that he studied engineering and he uses his skills to repair the shoe of the girl working in the studio (Setareh Pesiani). The girl tells him that Farokhzad is in the room next door reciting her poems for the girl’s uncle (Siavash Cheraghipour) who owns the studio. The uncle, who claims to be an old college mate of the customer, keeps bringing the wrong photos, raising the man’s ire with these mistakes. There is also a hedgehog on the loose in the studio.

Vahdani has gone back to the fundementals of filmmaking, Mise-en-scène, deep focus, depth of field and other building blocks of movies which sadly these days are often neglected. Each frame has been carefully designed and often resemble an Edward Hopper painting. The humour is akin to that found in Roy Andersson movies. Last Lullaby in Tehran makes a lot more impact than what could be expected in such a short time and promises a bright future for Vahdani as a filmmaker.

Mohammadreza Mayghani’s Orthodontics is something completely different.  The narrative and story is threadbare but visually it is very rich. Mayghani has made very good used of colours, light and sound to create the atmosphere in his film. All the prime colours and more are presented, pastel like, with accompanying sound effects.

The atmosphere created is sanitized and lifeless. Mayghani has put a distance between a girl who wears an orthodontic chin strap and the world around her. She has only one companion with whom she dances, plays tennis and video games. Even her mother seems very detached towards her, just telling her to make sure to wear the strap. The girl is an outsider and is suffocating inside. None of the sounds that we hear are natural sounds and an artificial world is created around the girls.

Mayghani has also made very creative use of locations, specially a tennis court which with a huge football stadium in its background provides a very cinematic contrast. His use of colours is also inventive and completely separates the characters from the normal world that we are used to seeing. It will be interesting to see what Mayghani can achieve with a bigger budget in a feature film. He is certainly blessed with a signature visual style.