Cry of Midnight (Samuel Khachikian, 1961)

Playing in Berlin (Sinema Transtopia) on May 11, 2023.

In 1961, the Iranian-Armenian Samuel Khachikian, a figure of enormous talent known for his strong female characters and the use of crime cinema motifs, the latter giving him the title of “Iranian Hitchcock”, was at the peak of his success. That year, both titles topping the Iranian box office were his. Indeed, other directors imitated his style and he became the first "name above the title" of Iranian cinema. Cry of Midnight [Faryade Nime Shab], internationally also known as Midnight Terror, was an unofficial remake of Charles Vidor's 1948 film, Gilda. It portrays one of the essential femme fatales of Iranian cinema, Parvin Ghaffari, appearing alongside the popular star Fardin as a young man who becomes entangled with a criminal gang but eventually finds his way back to the innocent girl that he's in love with. – EK

Focus on Filmfarsi in Paris (September 2022)

Cry of Midnight AKA Midnight Terror (1962)

A listing of the Iranian films which will be screened at L'Étrange Festival in Paris, including my documentary Filmfarsi (2019). All screenings at Forum des images, September 2022.

Filmfarsi (2019)

Sep 9, 17:45 (introduction by Ehsan) | Sep 18, 18:30

“As a long standing admirer of the New Iranian Cinema, I often wondered about its popular predecessor. Ehsan Khoshbakht has finally opened up this story.  His essayistic, meditative and cinephile analysis celebrates an unashamedly exploitative genre, steeped in sex and violence; Filmfarsi very usefully locates this crazy cinema within the Iranian popular and political culture of its time, and also allows it to find a place in the wider context of World Cinema.” — Laura Mulvey

5 Nowruz Recommendations [1398]

جوسلین صعب

پنج پیشنهاد تماشا برای نوروز 1398، به درخواست ماهنامۀ سینمایی فیلم.

سه‌گانۀ بیروت (جوسلین صعب، 82-1976): این معادل تابلوی گِرنیکای پیکاسو در سینماست، همان اندازه تکان دهنده، موحش و ساخته شده سر یک بزنگاه تاریخی و اخلاقی. یک زن آن را در زیر بمباران‌های دائمی و در بین منظری از بچه‌هایی که بدن‌هایش از گرسنگی دفرمه شده و بدن‌های تحت تأثیر بمب‌های شیمیایی اسرائیل به رنگ آبی درآمده ساخته است. فیلم مناسب عید نیست، اما آیا واقعیت مخصوص مواقع مشخصی از سال است؟

ای آفتاب (مد هوندو، 1970): بزرگ‌ترین کشف من در سال گذشته. اگر چارلی مینگوس (نوازنده باس و رهبر ارکستر موسیقی جاز در طرف مدرنش) فیلمساز بود، فیلمش اثری چنین خشمگین، زیبا، و با فرمی سیال از کار درمی‌آمد. فیلم دربارۀ تنهایی یک آفریقایی در اروپاست و این فیلمساز اهل موریتانی هر ثانیه‌ این دنیای دشوار را تجربه و لمس کرده است.

Tehran Noir in Noir City

My Tehran Noir essay on Samuel Khachikian is republished in issue 25 of Noir City. More about this issue below.

"Issue 25 may be the FNF's most eclectic and wide-ranging issue yet with its focus on International Noir. Our motto, 'It's a Bitter Little World' takes on even more significance when you realize noir is not a specifically American phenomenon. As several of the features in the new issue attest, the noir ethos found expression in cinemas around the world—either contemporaneous with the artistic movement in Hollywood, or inspired by it during the years following. As examples: our cover story, by the always insightful and eloquent Imogen Sara Smith, offers an overview of Mexican Noir; Jake Hinkson offers a terrific introduction to the films of Japanese auteur Yoshitaro Nomura; Brian Light reviews Budapest Noir and interviews the film's director  Éva Gárdos; Ray Banks provides an insightful profile of actor Patrick McGoohan. We're also proud to introduce two new contributors in this issue: Ehsan Khoshbakht, co-director of the annual Il Cinema Ritrovato festival in Bologna, offers a fascinating look at the career of Iranian director Samuel Khachikian, and Lisa Lieberman provides an intriguing exploration of how Hollywood exploited 'Asian exotica,' specifically in film noir. More than 100 sensational pages, including the usual stellar array of theatrical, Blu-ray/DVD and books reviews, plus an outstanding essay by Steve Kronenberg on Roger Corman's The Intruder, and the "5 Favorites" contribution by the legendary comic book writer/artist Jim Steranko. NOIR CITY Issue 25 will really broaden your dark horizons."

Strike [Zarbat] (Samuel Khachikian, 1964)

Bootimar (left) and Jalal in Zarbat

Zarbat
Iran, 1964, Director: Samuel Khachikian

International title: Strike. Script: Samuel Khachikian (uncredited). DoP.: Ghodratollah Ehsani. Editing: Samuel Khachikian. Art director: Hassan Paknejad, Ali Delpazir. Music.: Samuel Khachikian (selection). Cast: Arman (Jamal), Abdollah Bootimar (Dr. Kourosh Imen), Ghodsi Kashani (Shirin), Farzaneh Kazemi (Mozhgan), Jamsheed Tatar (Hossein Aghai), Reza Beik Imanverdi (Reza the Madman). Production.: Azhir Film Studio

The premiere of the film in Tehran

One of Khachikian’s most morbid thrillers, Zarbat actually begins as a melodrama – and a rather tedious one at that – in which most of Iranian cinema’s clichés of class conflict are introduced. Almost halfway into the film, however, Khachikian shifts to a meticulously designed spectacle of terror, as if in revenge for the preceding drama. Characters move into a dark territory of murder and mistaken identities. As in some of Khachikian’s other works, the setting of an ordinary house becomes a site of peril and a stage for perverse pleasures, as the director plays with filmic elements to the point of abstraction. Khachikian explains this as his attempt, after the 1950s, to “revive the alphabet of film” in Iranian cinema: “I wanted to save Iranian cinema from roohozi [a popular and vulgar form of theatre]. From the first day onwards, it wasn't the message or the content that I was concerned with. What I wanted was a precise cinema: action, correct editing, lighting and so on.”

Anxiety [Delhoreh] (Samuel Khachikian, 1962)

Bootimar in Anxiety [aka Horror]

Playing on June 24, 16:15 at Cine Jolly, Il Cinema Ritrovato, Bologna

Delhoreh
Iran, 1962, Dir: Samuel Khachikian

Int. title.: Horror. Alt. title: Anxiety. Script.: Samuel Khachikian (uncredited). Cinematographer.: Ghodratollah Ehsani. Editing: Samuel Khachikian. Art director.: Hassan Paknejad. Music.: Samuel and Soorik Khachikian (selection). Cast.: Irene (Roshanak Niknejad), Abdollah Bootimar (Behrooz Niknejad), Arman (Jamsheed), Shandermani (Babak), Haleh (Fetneh), Reza Beik Imanverdi (killer with knife). Prod.: Azhir Film Studio

Newspaper ad anouncing the screening of the film in three Tehran cinemas

Tehran Noir: Samuel Khachikian and the rise and fall of Iranian genre films

For four decades, this innovative director made Hollywood-style movies that played to sellout crowds in Iran. After the revolution, his western inspirations fell out of favour, but a new retrospective of his little-seen work should reinvogorate his reputation.

READ THE FULL STORY ON SIGHT & SOUND

Tehran Noir: Thrillers of Samuel Khachikian

Samuel Khachikian behind the camera

If you already don't know, there's a new Iranian cinema strand taht I've co-programmed with Behdad Amini for Il Cinema Ritrovato. I'll be soon posting more information about this small tribute to one of Iranian cinema's greatest:

Femme fatales, private detectives, rainy nights in a concrete jungle, desperate men in trench coats… It all sounds like a film noir, and in fact, it is, but set in a time and place you would least expect: Tehran of the 1950s! This year, Il Cinema Ritrovato shifts its focus to the golden age of Iranian genre films, by unearthing four films directed by one of the most popular and influential figures in the history of Iranian cinema, Samuel Khachikian. The films, never screened outside Iran, show Khachikian working in his most familiar territories of film policier, thriller and film noir which both documented Iran on the point of modernisation and, through the myth of cinema, contributed to it. In the world of these delightfully stylish, low-key films an overlooked face of Iranian cinema is to be discovered.

The 66th Hitler: A Party In Hell (1956)

Samuel Khachikian

Olaf Möller, in his introduction to Conference - Notes on Film 05 (Norbert Pfaffenbichler, 2011), speculates on configuration of 65 Hitlers that are assembled and put in a cinematic conference in this 8-minute-long Austrian film: "[Hitler] appears as if from the depths of space, the darkness, and the Erewhin, from beyond the frame. As if through certain gestures, routines and repetitions thereof, variants and variations, a narrative, an essay, a study is created of what's characteristic about Hitler and it spans decades."

The film was shown at Il Cinema Ritrovato as a part of "Cinema at War Against Hitler." I promised Olaf to add a film to that entry, a very fascinating piece of surrealist kitsch from Iranian cinema, A Party In Hell (1956).

Party was partly directed by veteran Iranian filmmaker Samuel Khachikian [picture above], co-directed by rather insignificant Mushegh Sarvarian. It revolves around Haji Jabbar's journey in Hell, visiting famous residents and enjoying half-naked dancers.

Executed with the technique of Ed Wood and the imaginative innocence of Georges Méliès, there is a scene in the film towards the end, when Hitler is seen dancing around the globe (lifted from Chaplin) along with Napoleon and Genghis Khan! That's the 66th Hitler, and as far as I know, the only one from the Middle East. (Any Hitler film made in other Asian countries?)

I have extracted this superb sequence from a horrible copy of the film. If the faces are not clearly visible, please do use your imagination:

The Iranian Hitchcock

In memory of Samuel Khachikian (1923 - 2001)
click on the image for larger size.