THE SUMMONED
Iran, 2007, 91 minutes, Colour.
Directed by Arash Moayerian.
The Summoned is a melodramatic story, focusing on two brothers and their rivalry. The older is a drug addict who is jealous that his younger brother inherited their father’s money and property. The younger brother manages the property, is happily married and leads a contented life? They have not spoken for years. The older brother has a fiancée who accompanies him on his visit to the brother. The younger brother is married. There is a mysterious young girl, allegedly the daughter of the younger brother who seems to have been interned and beaten.
However, it is difficult to know exactly what is happening – because the director uses the technique of the characters imagining what they might have done as well as what they actually did. Fantasy and reality merge. We see different facets of each of the characters, sinister as well as benign. It is difficult to know whether there are deaths or not, whether the young girl character is real or not. In many ways this is quite intriguing – but done in a very Iranian melodramatic style.
1.Interest in the drama? The technique of storytelling?
2.The title, the reference to each of the characters? Their alter-egos?
3.The Iranian setting, the city, the country property? The world of drugs? The world of business? The farm world? Authentic? The musical score? Atmospheric?
4.The focus on the drug addict, the remnants of the party, the phone calls, his taking the pills, going to the office, his fiancée and her work, the debt to the three men, his work assistant? What really happened? His imagining his aggression towards the men, his refusal to give the money, tearing up the cheque, sacking his fiancée? The contrast with reality? His going to see his brother, the jealousy? The meal, the discussions, in the stables? Imagining killing his brother? The young girl and her appearance and disappearance? The seeming double-dealing of his fiancée? The confrontation with his brother’s wife? The killings, his shooting her? His own death or not?
5.The younger brother, the inheritance, the farm, his wife, the happy family, receiving his brother? The table talk about the daughter? The sinister side of the nice brother, the knife attacks? Deaths? The stables? His wife, betrayal or not?
6.The two women, their relationship with the brothers, love, support? In their brothers’ fantasies? Fidelity and/or betrayal? Deaths?
7.The cumulative effect of this kind of drama? The different strands, the different psychological perspectives? Moral perspectives?
