MR YUSSUF

Iran, 2011, 95 minutes, Colour.
Ali Raffiee.

Mr Yussuf is a grandfather, a retired man who secretly takes on the job of a cleaner in rich Teheranian residents’ houses. He keeps this from his daughter whom he has brought up. He is fond of children, helps his daughter-in-law and her daughter – her husband had migrated to Canada without her. He also has a friend, a taxi driver, who is alienated from his wife and daughter.

The film is very strong on the theme of the relationships between fathers and daughters. Mr Yussuf is generally a kindly man but when he has evidence that his daughter is planning to go to Canada with a doctor for whom he cleans house, he becomes disoriented, angry, aggressive towards his daughter, cuts her off. When he seems to find that it was not his daughter’s voice he heard on an answering machine, he reconciles with her. However, at the end of the film, there is an irony because while he is cleaning, his daughter comes to the house, phones the doctor, plans to visit him. However, Mr Yussuf has gone already when the daughter offers to come to visit the doctor with her father. The film does not end – there is a life after it, complex as to whether the father will accept his daughter’s relationship with the doctor (who has a bad reputation) comes to anything.

The film has no political background, rather it is a picture of ordinary Iranian life in the cities, families, relationships.

1. An ordinary man? An everyman?

2. The Teheran settings, the wealthy houses, the poorer houses, the suburbs? The musical score?

3. The credits, the bucket and mop? Cleaning, menial, servants, the disdain of the rich, the young man rebuked by his mother? The friendly customers? An introduction to Yussuf?

4. Yussuf and his age, retired, his wife dead five years, his son migrated to Canada without his wife and daughter, Yussuf’s daughter at home, his love for children, at home, the exercise, the meals, the sleeping arrangements, genial?

5. The different homes where he cleaned, the woman with the clothes and her daughter being upset, the little girl and playing with Yussuf? The doctor and his household? The old man?

6. The bar, his friends, the taxi driver, taking the food, the taxi driver giving it to the cats, their talking, long friendship, the issues of their daughters?

7. Yussuf’s daughter, at home, her work on the radio, the broadcast of The Little Prince and her rehearsals? The phone calls, her going out? Yussuf hearing her voice on the answering machine, giving her the silent treatment, hurt by her, eventually hitting her? His being reassured by the woman about the scarf and the perfume? The reconciliation, the meal with his daughter and daughter-in-law? His visit, hearing the phone call, his daughter present in the house, his walking away? The uncertain future?

8. The cellist and her mother, her mother turning her against her father? Her father in the taxi watching her? Wanting to meet her? The women talking in the café? Her concert? Going to visit her father in prison?

9. The maid at the doctor’s, work, eating, chatting, they clash?

10. The police, the stabbing of the doctor, the taxi driver confessing and going to prison? Yussuf visiting him? The interrogations?

11. Families, their expectations, especially of daughters to look after the elderly, the old man being fed, Yussuf’s disappointment in his daughter?

12. The girl at the radio, the scarf and the perfume, the gesture of owning up that it was she, putting them in the rubbish? Yussuf reassured? The problematic ending – and the future for Yussuf and his daughter?