TO LIVE

Iran, 2002, 76 minutes, Colour.
Directed by Raza Sobhani.

To Live is a very stylised portrait of an elderly photographer. It uses the more contemplative techniques of past films, a binding of the transcendental contemplative method with social realism, almost documentary-like. The film focuses on cameras, especially old-fashioned cameras, indicating that the film is a moving photograph. The old man lives in a small apartment, watches the children playing outside, is wakened by the express trains passing near his window. Each day he goes laboriously to work, walking, in the bus, in the park seeing subjects - and remembering the portrait that he took of a woman who is his ideal. Some of his clients get very impatient. In the park there is a flautist who wanders in and out with his music. There is also a photographer with more up-to-date cameras.

The old man goes to a group of elderly men who listen to storyteller, taking them back into the mythology of Iran's past. This is the main social contact that the old man has. Eventually he grows ill and dies.

While the film is very worthy, has a sympathetic performance from the old man, takes us into an ordinary couple of days in life in Iran, it requires a great deal of patience from its audience to watch it and enjoy it.