MOVIE MANIA

Iran, 2002, 84 minutes, Colour.
Directed by Ebrahim Vahidzade.

Movie Mania is a satiric look at the film industry in Iran. Culturally, the film is very localised. While audiences will appreciate that there is satire on the mercenary attitudes towards film-making, and will be able to make comparisons with other industries in other countries, the particular details and style are very local.

A film director, who hasn't had a success for seven years, gets money from the bank and puts himself into an institution, declaring that he suffers from schizophrenia. He participates in the life of the asylum, and a quick gallery of inmates is shown. The asylum is used as a metaphor for the Iranian industry, the film sometimes moving from film-making outside the institution to inside. The director also acts as the central character in his film, which he explains to a producer while the details of the film are presented in a framework above the shoulders of the director explaining it to the producer.

He tries a story about children in a village having to sell their goat and go to the city but the producer says that audiences would not like to see this kind of story. It moves then to a conventional romance. However, in one sequence the hero is beaten up. The producer prefers to bring a tall bald muscleman into the film who defeats the attackers. The various banquet scenes, action scenes, romances and, finally, a wedding.

The humour is sometimes broad, the barbs obviously aimed at unimaginative moneymaking administrators in the film industry, especially with a scene in the Film Board discussing a screenplay and the allotment of money.

For those interested in Iranian cinema, it is an opportunity to see the film-makers being critical of their superiors.