Even if I haven't been totally convinced by this Iranian film called CIRCUMSTANCE, I think that it's still pretty important, considering what this country is experiencing, to talk about it, and to try to convince you to go see it at SIFF - because it's showing, yes! - .
Directed by Maryam Keshavarz - it's her first feature, and only for this reason, I must say that it's impressive - , CIRCUMSTANCE tells the story of two Iranian girls, Atafeh and Shireen, who experiment their first sexual affair together, in Tehran. They fall in love with each other, while living a dangerous underground night-life during which they, for example, do the dubbing in Persian of the film HARVEY MILK - some pretty funny and interesting moments emerge from this -. However, Atafeh's brother, who is back from rehab and has abandoned his former carrier as a classical musician, joins the morality police and starts watching the two friends very closely. He progressively becomes obsessed with Shireen, his sister's lover, and decided to do everything to save her from all the bad influences spread by his sister...
This triangle of suspense, betrayal, desire, obsession, freedom and love is wonderfully played by the three actors - Nikohl Boosheri, Sarah Kazemy and Reza Sixo Safai - and the director paints an oppressed Iranian youth full of hopes and desires of change. In a very different way, it reminded me of a film I didn't like at all that I saw in Cannes two years ago called NO ONE KNOWS ABOUT PERSIAN CATS - a film that was also dealing with youth in Teheran and the underground but very much alive scene that inhabits the city. What I appreciated with CIRCUMSTANCE is that you can see the moral fight within a family and within the individuals themselves - a wish for more freedom, but a fear of the authorities and a resignation sometimes.
The treatment is very sensual and aesthetic - sometimes too "video-clip" like and too slow - and this woman took many risks by making this film. She broke all the taboos established in her country, about sex, homosexuality, drugs, alcohol, freedom of speech, religion. And considering what is happening today in Iran with filmmakers - i.e Jafar Pahani's imprisonment - I really hope you'll get a chance to see this film - and if you are in Cannes, also see Mohammad Rasoulof BE OMID E DIDAR and Jafar Panahi & Mojtaba Mirtahmasb THIS IS NOT A FILM. A great wave of artistic protest is happening in Iran, and it's important to make it live, longer and abroad.
CIRCUMSTANCE won the Audience Award in Sundance.
MJ.
