Shanghai International Film Festival: A Tale of Two Films
If the films from the Shanghai International Film Festival’s Golden Goblet Awards competition in the past few days were mere appetizers, then the remaining films are increasingly becoming the main course, with a growing potential for awards.
Today’s two films are a case in point: one will leave you pondering, while the other is a hypnotic “masterpiece.”
A Time to Remember (4/5)
The benefit of watching this competition film is not only learning a few niche Persian phrases: salan (hello), mamanuna (thank you), but more importantly, after watching this good film, you can shamelessly ask the director for an autograph.
Director Hamid Ghotbi (right)
This is a quintessential Iranian film, remarkably restrained, appearing as unassuming as its creative team, yet possessing considerable dramatic tension. While A Separation, which received an Oscar nomination four years ago, may be more renowned, the story remains a family narrative that Iranians excel at telling.
Yellow mud bricks, the sound of the barbat, and Muslim women draped in black veils are the most apparent ethnic elements in the film. The movie emphasizes the female perspective, divided into three parts, each telling the story of a different woman. Iran permits polygamy, but the film explores the relationship between child custody and this legality, a legal practice that intertwines the fates of the three female protagonists.
The cinematography is imaginative. The film opens with Shirin, the first female lead, attending her father’s funeral. An aerial shot evokes the father’s near-death experience, soaring through the air, overlooking his descendants. During the funeral, a shot covered by a black veil during Shirin’s soliloquy creates a first-person perspective for the audience.
Shirin (originally Soheila), Mahraka, and Gohar—these three female leads all possess strong personalities. Shirin views her father’s funeral as a gathering of the powerful and struggles intensely with the acceptance of a suddenly appearing brother.
Mahraka, Shirin’s adoptive mother, is the most pitiable, ending up with no relatives. She seems to have known the truth from the beginning but only wants to downplay her past experiences.
The most tormented is Gohar, Shirin’s biological mother, who must shroud herself in black veils even in broad daylight, watching Shirin’s family enjoy their happiness.
The film’s ending is full of hope and uncertainty. Unlike traditional narrative films with a closed loop, it doesn’t offer a conventional happy ending or a tale of profound suffering. Gohar chooses reconciliation to conclude the story, but before she can speak, the screen fades to black, the credits roll, and the ending is left to the imagination. This time, the Iranians choose silence to confront their family and patriarchal system.
Journey to the Shore (1/5)
Before the screening, the title and synopsis suggested a road movie.
After 10 minutes, it seemed to be a film about dreams.
After another 20 minutes, it appeared to be a rhapsody of a lonely, resentful woman.
After 30 minutes, it felt like a horror film!
By the end of the screening, it was clear that the director had ruined it with a mystical mess.
“The greater the hope, the greater the disappointment” perfectly describes this film. Having just made an appearance at the Cannes Film Festival last month, Kiyoshi Kurosawa was practically a golden brand for this film, but it failed.
Kiyoshi Kurosawa, the director of Tokyo Sonata, Bright Future, and Cure. What was he thinking? Was he high? Or did he go to study transcendental meditation with David Lynch?
Japanese cinema is not lacking in films about the obsession with life and death. Compared to Naomi Kawase’s similar film The Mourning Forest, this film’s hypnotic and mystical qualities are even more excessive. Those around me were either sleeping or expressing disdain.
The opening piano music immediately reminded those familiar with Kurosawa’s work of Tokyo Sonata, giving hope that the film might be promising.
Ten minutes later, the disappointment began, with a series of bizarre settings.
“Dead” is translated as “losing consciousness.” Every time the female lead wants to see her “unconscious” husband, she makes a bowl of soul-summoning white jade dumplings.
To embark on an unprepared journey, you must first have a job like the female lead’s, where you don’t have to work, and a bank account with countless zeros.
Afterward, the film’s music goes crazy, with triumphant music playing after the male and female leads carry a drunken old man home.
Most heartbreaking for male fans is Aoi Yu’s mere 5 minutes of screen time!
If we try to restore the film to its original form using normal logic, it should be a story of “reconciliation - acceptance - forgetting,” which could have been told calmly and lightly, rather than being mystical and talking about nihilism, Einstein, and the Big Bang.