Audience Member
In its infinite wisdom, IMDB has decided that, if you like this film, you will also like [i]Chicago[/i]. It is true that I [i]do[/i] like both, but as we've established, I'm unusual. While it's true that they do have some things in common--Death Row, mainly, though there is a little singing and dancing in [i]Dame sobh[/i], and they are both made and starring humans--they are about as different as two films get. While both of them do interesting things with angle, colour, and not-quite-real moments, the [i]way[/i] they're done is completely different. It is [i]not[/i] Heaven nowadays for Mansour (Hosein Yari).
We know what Mansour did; we see it at the beginning of the film. We do not know why. We do not know the sequence of events leading up to it. We do not even really know who the victim is, how he relates to Mansour. All we know is that Mansour is to be hanged--but only if the family shows up to give their permission. Apparently, under the Iranian Muslim government, the life of a condemned man belongs to the family of his victim. They alone may spare him--usually, it seems, in exchange for goods either for themselves or donated to charity, though I don't know for sure--or tell the prison authorities to carry through with the execution. Twice Mansour has been called to the gallows; twice, he has walked away. The story is framed by the second and third execution dates. We are not to know what happened to Mansour, not to know if that final dream was a prophecy. We are cut off from his life.
This movie was filmed in an actual Tehrani prison, and according to IMDB, it's based on actual events. The prison seems strange to Western eyes. Mansour and the other inmates live in one big room, it seems, with rugs on the floor, even. They celebrate the birth on Mansour's daughter. They actually spend quite a lot of time discussing one another's lives. There is also a row of solitary cells along a very, very thin hallway. The guards seem friendly, though perhaps it is through sympathy for Mansour, who is trapped in a way that no other prisoner there shares.
The prison is lit dimly, with that long, thin hallway pale and flickering under fluorescent lights. Mansour's flashbacks are richer in colour. His memories of his wife, Atifeh (Hoda Nasseh), are full of blues and reds and golds. His images of the prison are shadowy. Blue, yes, but a washed-out blue and not the rich, luminous colour of the scarf he has given Atifeh in some unknown past. Even Atifeh herself looks paler, less vivid, under that cold prison light. The camera, for all it's supposed to be documentary footage according to what we learn at the beginning, shows us angles no documentarian could have managed. We see Mansour in the black of the condemned cell, his face glowing in the dim light--but it's not the glow of his memories. It's the sickly sheen of sweat.
I know, I know--it's a movie in Farsi about a condemned man, and I want you to watch it? But it is worth seeking out, even though it's not [i]Chicago[/i].
Rated 4.5/5 Stars •
Rated 4.5 out of 5 stars
02/12/23
Full Review
Audience Member
The film begins in the style of a faux-documentary, and then interjects with flashbacks and later hypothetical story outcomes. Too many stylistic shifts distract from a story that presents a strange loop hole in Iranian law which allows a man to remain on death row perpetually so long as the family of the victim do not show up for the execution.
Surprisingly, the story is entirely concerned with his predictable emotional breakdown, and makes no comment on punishment verses rehabilitation, or that what is apparently most flawed about the law is the fact that they don't seek consent from the victims' family before setting the dates of execution.
Criticisms aside, this is a rare portrait of Iran and its culture. It still beats seeing Norbit any day.
Rated 2/5 Stars •
Rated 2 out of 5 stars
02/27/23
Full Review
Audience Member
[img]http://images.rottentomatoes.com/images/movie/coverv/91/261591.jpg[/img]Hilarious and irreverent Belgian comics Benoît Delépine and Gustave Kervern wrote, direct, and star in this dark, edgy, and very funny comedy about two antagonistic farmers who, in the course of escalating their bitter rivalry, both end up paralyzed by a tractor. Teaming up, the irascible duo decides to exact revenge from the vehicle's manufacturer, and embark on a memorable oddball odyssey to Helsinki.
[b]Dark comedy that's worth a view.[/b]
[b][u]Day Break[/u][/b]
Filmed in a Tehran prison, a murderer is waiting for his sentence. In Iran, capital punishment is carried out according to Islamic law, which gives the family of the victim ownership of the offender's life. When the fam of the victim repeatedly fails to show up on the appointed day, Mansour's execution is postponed repeatedly which is a slow torture for him.
[size=3]I didn't find the film that interesting or the charactor's very sympathetic. At least the film is relatively short, 85 min.[/size]
Rated 2/5 Stars •
Rated 2 out of 5 stars
02/09/23
Full Review
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