A HOUSE BUILT ON WATER

Iran, 2002, 107 minutes, Colour.
Directed by Bahman Farmanara.

A House Built on Water was the winner of the first Inter-Faith? Award given by SIGNIS, the International Catholic Association for Communication, Teheran 2002. The film offers an invitation for dialogue between Islam and Catholicism. It features a young boy who has learnt the Koran by heart and gone into coma who, in fact, will be the instrument by which the wealthy middle-aged doctor who is in personal crisis will find some redemption. The film also opens with a magic realism touch, the doctor, drunk, hitting an angel in a car accident.

The film portrays a wealthy, cynical and secularised Teheran doctor, a womaniser, a drinker, not interested in the Muslim law. In his practice he is often harsh with his patients. He has had several relationships with women on the staff of his hospital and with his assistant. His father, a businessman and philanderer like himself, is in an old people's home wanting to be elsewhere. The doctor's son, absent from Iran for 15 years in the United States, returns and is found to be a heroin addict.

The doctor tells one of the characters that he feels he is drowning. The character replies that he has drowned long ago but has not realised it. When his son says that he is the last resort for help, the doctor remarks that it is a terrible world when he is the last resort.

The film works very well as a drama about the doctor's crisis, about the generations of men in Iran. It is also a comment on secular values at the turn of the millennium, the doctor criticising a woman with HIV who wants to deceive her intend her husband so that she can get out of Iran, saying that this generation tops the previous generation. The film also offers a cinematic link with angels, not only the injured angel at the opening of the film as well as the little boy who knows the Koran, but also through the movies. Scenes are played of It's a Wonderful Life with George Bailey discussing Clarence's status as an angel.

The film also draws on archetypal images, especially of fate, where an elderly woman called Mrs Alltime weaves a scarf with various skeins of wool. These are finally scattered over the floor of the doctor's house as mysterious phantom killers come to assault him and the little boy.

The film works well on all kinds of levels.

1. The impact of the film, as drama, personal study of the doctor, portrait of values and lack of values in Iranian society, the role of Muslim law and the Koran, the mythical, mystical and archetypal elements of angels, an old woman knitting fate, phantoms and redemption.

2. The Teheran setting, the world of affluence, the doctor and his wealthy home, the nursing home, his office, the hospital, the poorer sections of the city, the streets with the drug addicts? A comprehensive picture of the city? The musical score?

3. The title and its reference to the individuals, Iranian society, the HIV-infected woman talking about a house built on water?

4. The opening, the doctor and his drunkenness, reckless driving, the callgirl companion, the accident, his discovering the angel, unable to lift her, her making the wound on his hand, the bandages, the surgeon and his commentary? The little boy and his healing the hand?

5. The role of angels in the tradition of the Koran, in biblical traditions, in the movies? Child angels? Guardians, protectors? Vulnerable angels? The excerpt from It's a Wonderful Life and George Bailey discussing with Clarence? The little boy, his role as an angel, the human boy exhausted by his parents exploiting him with knowing the Koran, raising money from him, his body going into coma, his response to the doctor? The doctor rescuing him, taking him home? The boy's healing? The intruders, the boy in the closet hiding, his coming out, his dying with the doctor? Symbols of redemption?

6. The portrait of the doctor, the aftermath of the accident, at home, his servant, his absent wife, absent children? His relationship with his father? The long sequence of the reminiscences, his father's memories, callousness, abusing his eleven-year-old son on the phone, attitude towards his mother? The doctor's resentments towards his father? The father wanting to get out of the nursing home, being pitiable? Mirror images? The contrast with Mani, his being in America, his stepfather and the verbal abuse and the beatings? Love for his mother? His father phoning him only for his birthday? Lamenting that he never had a father when he needed one? The story of his fear of heights at four, being urged to trust and jump, his father ducking and his hitting the floor? Accusing his father of ducking issues? His being taken at the airport, the revelation of the drugs, his father's reaction, getting him home, the heroin addiction, his explanations, the hiding of the drugs in the toilet, his father finding them? The promise of going to rehabilitation? The bond between father and son, the boy escaping, going into the city seeking drugs with his father's money, the father and his decision to search for his son, driving the streets, talking with the drug addicts?

7. The doctor and his relationship with women, the hospital attendant and her cancer, his not visiting her or contacting her during her illness? The receptionist, her age, her expectations of the relationship, her pregnancy, the termination, her being unable to have children? Her work with the doctor, her phoning the people following him? Shadowy characters? Who were they, her contact with him? Her vengeance or not? Drug dealers and the pursuit of the son?

8. The attitude of the doctor towards his patients, the woman in her eleventh pregnancy, his attack on the father, the woman at the door wanting compassion? His eventually changing his mind, too late, seeing the funeral, being hit by the father? His meeting the father of his receptionist in the street, not knowing anything that had happened to the daughter, giving the man money? The woman wanting her virginity restored for her future husband, the blood test, the irony of her being HIV-infected, her wanting to deceive her husband, desperate to get out of Iran?

9. The doctor and his loneliness, age, experience, deprivations, yet having everything that money could buy? His relationship with his servant? Going home, weeping? The effect of the angels on him? The visit to the bedside of the coma boy, the avarice of the father? His decision to take the boy and its consequences?

10. His being followed, the reassurance of his receptionist? The link with the woman knitting the scarf, the balls of wool, the different colours, the symbol of fate and destiny, his seeing balls of wool at the hospital, at his surgery, in his house? The final skeins for the cobweb of colour? The phantom killers coming (their identities or just his fate and punishment)? The violence of his death and the death of the boy? Why had the two to be killed?

11. The impact of the drama on a realistic level, on a symbolic and magic realism level, on a level of allegory?