The Cow (Dariush Mehrjui, 1969) | MoMA

The Cow (Dariush Mehrjui, 1969)

Dariush Mehrjui and his wife were brutally murdered on October 14, 2023. MoMA screens this film on October 26.

This milestone of the Iranian New Wave portrays, with heartbreaking intensity, the themes of solitude and obsession in the story of a poor villager (unforgettably played by Ezzatolah Entezami) whose only source of joy and livelihood is his cow. When the cow is mysteriously killed one night, the metamorphosis begins. Based on short stories by psychiatrist Gholam-Hossein Sa’edi, The Cow was smuggled to the Venice Film Festival in defiance of an export ban, where it was almost immediately and internationally recognized as a masterpiece. Poignantly wrapped in layers of religion and leftist politics (two major forces of the 1979 revolution), The Cow came under the spotlight more than a decade later, when Ayatollah Khomeini hailed it as an example of “good cinema,” as opposed to the many “corrupting films” of the Pahlavi era. – Ehsan Khoshbakht

Trailer for Celluloid Underground (2023)

 

Still Life (Sohrab Shahid Saless, 1974) reviewed by John Gillet for Sight & Sound

Perhaps Berlin’s main achievement was to reveal the progress of the young Iranian director Sohrab Shahid Sales, with A Simple Event (reviewed from last year’s Tehran Festival) in the Forum and Still Life in competition. The new film continues his preoccupation with the lives of inarticulate people—in this case, an elderly railway signalman who receives news of his retirement with utter incomprehension— developed through lengthy scenes in which the characters are simply observed going about their daily chores. Without Sales’ extraordinary control, the result could be  intolerable, but for me the film’s exact placing and timing of shots, rather like a slow symphony scored pianissimo throughout, was entirely hypnotic. 

Sven Klangs kvintett (Stellan Olsson, 1976)

Playing at Close-Up Cinema in London on September 24, 2023. – EK

Voted by Swedish film critics as one of the "25 greatest Swedish films ever", Stellan Olsson's tender drama is based on a play by Henric Holmberg and Ninne Olsson, about the failed transformation of a dance band, formed by a group of young friends, into a proper jazz band in southern Sweden of the late 1950s. Excited by the discovery of a new musical language, they discuss Charlie Parker, and one of them, the saxophonist Lars Nilsson, goes as far as imitating his idol not only in his saxophone sound but also in his wild lifestyle. Shot in stunning black-and-white, many traces of the tableau-like compositions that Swedish cinema through figures like Roy Andersson became known for are already established here. So is the cracking humour. This gem of Swedish films is ripe for rediscovery.

Tranquility in the Presence of Others (Nasser Taghvai, 1969)

Tranquility in the Presence of Others

Nasser Taghvai, 1969, 84 min, Persian with English subtitles

Often seen as one of the indispensable films of the Iranian New Wave, Tranquility in the Presence of Others [Aramsh Dar Hozor-e Digaran] is a poignant and brisk cinematic adaptation of a story by leftist (and later exiled and banned) writer Gholam-Hossein Saedi, attacking the indecisiveness and empty rhetoric of Iranian intellectuals, as well as dissecting the patriarchal core of Iranian society. Banned after a single screening at the Shiraz Arts Festival of 1969 – a ban which was not removed until 1973 – it tells the story of a retired army general who travels to Tehran with his newlywed wife to visit his daughters, only to observe their unhappiness and casual affairs. As his mental condition deteriorates, the film’s tone shifts from sardonic to tragic. Tranquility in the Presence of Others delves into the anxieties of a country that is seemingly marching forward but retains a troubled, melancholic relationship with the past. The gender and social conflicts of Saedi's story are brilliantly translated into a bleak vision of Iranian society and the confusion of the middle classes.  – Ehsan Khoshbakht

Il Cinema Ritrovato 2023: Favourites & Discoveries

The 37th edition of Il Cinema Ritrovato concluded last week but its memories live on. 

In Silk Stockings (Rouben Mamoulian, 1957), a quintet of melancholic expats freshly returned from a seductive Paris to a drab shared apartment in Moscow start reminiscing about the joys of the high life in the French capital. Soon it turns into a competition in remembering. Getting too intense where disillusioned Marxist-Leninists accuse each other of stealing one another's memories, Ninotchka (Cyd Charisse), fervently dedicated to the equal distribution of all kinds of wealth, steps in and declares: "Comrades, there are enough memories for all of us." Judging from the range and diversity of this year's picks by festival attendees, it seems that we should not be too worried about running out of memories until next June.

Statistics tell me "120,000 spectators" have viewed "470 films [in] seven cinemas," a 12% increase in attendance compared to previous year. Feelings tell me billions of memories have been made.

Nearly 120 participants from 39 countries have picked their "favourite film" at the festival, as well as their "major discovery" this year. Some have accompanied their choices with additional notes. It's a delight to read.

See their picks below.

* * *

Peter Cowie on Gharibeh va Meh (1974)

"Two years in the making, it is a vast, symbolist drama, set in some remote historical period (hazy even to Iranians), and bursting at the seams with action and bloodcurdling confrontations. Why a young man arrives in a boat to disturb the ritual of a small village, why he is pursued by a band of ominous, black-clad strangers, and why he takes once more to the sea, seems unimportant, for Beizai’s [sic] dazzling technique, clearly influenced by Kurosawa, sweeps all before it. No other Middle Eastern cinema could sustain such an ambitious and visually exciting production."  Peter Cowie / Sight & Sound, April 1975

Il Cinema Ritrovato XXXVII – The Films

Il Cinema Ritrovato XXXVII – (Almost) All the Titles

Rouben Mamoulian, Lost and Found (André S. Labarthe, 2016)

Rouben Mamoulian, Lost and Found

Free admission screening of the film at Il Cinema Ritrovato, on June 23, 14.30, Sala Scorsese.

When it comes to filmed interviews, Mamoulian is one of the well-documented giants of classical Hollywood. His eloquence and wisdom can be heard in interviews shot for documentaries about his friends (George Stevens: A Filmmaker's Journey, shown at Il Cinema Ritrovato 2021) or horror cinema (The Horror of It All by Gene Feldman and Suzette Winter, 1983). There are films exclusively about him such as Patrick Cazals's Rouben Mamoulian, l’âge d’or de Broadway et Hollywood (2007) which also features brief clips of interviews that Iranian director of Armenian origins, Arby Ovanessian (a guest of Il Cinema Ritrovato 2022) conducted with Mamoulian. Television networks, too, since the revival of his films in the 1960s, have interviewed him as in BBC's Film Extra (1973). However, this French television interview, by one of the fathering figures of television documentaries on cinema, André S. Labarthe, was lost for decades until retrieved and made into the Rouben Mamoulian, Lost and Found. This is the most detailed career interview Mamoulian ever gave on film.

Cherike-ye Tara [The Ballad of Tara] (Bahram Beyzaie, 1979)

The Ballad of Tara

 

Bahram Beyzaie's seamless blend of myth, symbolism, folklore and classical Persian literature in The Ballad of Tara is unparalleled in its complexity. Yet, apart from Downpour (1972), which was restored and revived a decade ago, the director with the most consistent body of work in the Iranian cinema of the 1970s is also, unjustly, one of the most invisible masters of the Iranian New Wave. Here, as well as directing, he has also produced, written, set-, costume-designed and edited a mesmerising tale that fuses the ceremonial legends of the past with contemporary life. Tara, a strong-willed widow encounters the fleeting ghost of an ancient warrior in the forest next to her village. The ghost's appearances become more frequent and finally he talks to her, claiming a sword that she has found among her father's effects. Without the sword, the dead warrior can't rest. But when the sword is restored to him, it's his love for Tara that prevents him from returning to the land of the dead.