BIST (TWENTY)
Iran, 2009, 86 minutes, Colour.
Parviz Parastui.
Directed by Abdolreza Kahani.
For devotees of serious Iranian cinema, it is best to warn potential audiences that, while distinguished director, Abbas Kierostami, called two of his experimental features, Ten and Five, the twenty of this title is very different. It simply refers to the number of days that the owner of a hall/restaurant for functions like marriages or wakes has before he sells his business.
Most of the action of this humane film is confined to the hall, the kitchen, the basement and the flat upstairs. And the characters are principally those who work there. The film opens with Mr Saloumeini realising that he must sell and signing the contracts. He then tells the staff, a group of hardworking men and women whom we see cook, serve, clean up and become tired with their hard and routine jobs. One of the women has a little daughter who tends to get in the way. A young man arrives to play the accordion at functions but also has a message for Mr Saloumeini which he cannot bring himself to communicate.
The film is principally about how the characters react, how they want the business to stay open, how one of the women wants to matchmake – Mr Saloumeini with the woman with the daughter.
The wonderful Iranian actor Parviz Parastui (serious in Mahid Majidi's Weeping Willow, comic in Kamal Tabrizi's Marmalouk/ The Lizard) is Mr Saloumeini, a character of fastidious tidiness, of loneliness, of grief and of getting old, but with touches of severity.
This is the kind of values film about human nature (and its universal aspects despite local customs) that Iranian cinema has been making for decades to make theirs one of the most values-oriented in the world.
1.Iranian films, their human values, perceptiveness, society? Distinctive?
2.The Iranian city, the wedding hall, the interiors: the kitchen, the flat, the basement, the dining area, for men, for women? The outside street? The streets, the bus station? Realism? The musical score?
3.The action confined to the hall, an enclosed world? A microcosm of Iran?
4.The focus on Soleimani? His age, the initial interview, his grief, serious, the decision to close the hall, having twenty days?
5.The detail of life in the hall, occasions, for grief and joy, funerals and weddings? The glimpses of the ceremonies? The bookings? The meals, the food, the cook, the kitchen, the staff, serving, the men and the women, the child, the cleaning up afterwards, the routines – and the impatience of the man who poured the soft drink on the customer?
6.The end of the day, the introduction to the different characters, the woman with her daughter, the cook and his wife, the two different men? Accommodation, other jobs?
7.The decision about selling, not taking any bookings, notice to the staff, their reactions, the giving of cash (and the cook complaining about his injury to his arm)? Plans, the possibility of using the hall for the film set, the negotiations? The contract and the business connections?
8.Soleimani in himself, in his office, fastidious with the tidiness of his desk, alone, the meals alone, the offer to have them in his flat, the talk with the wife of the cook, her trying to do matchmaking, the effect on the woman with the child? His moods, snapping at the staff?
9.The men and their work, their characters, the car keys, the shopping, the other jobs, the plan for the film set, issues of money? The other man and his love for the woman and her child?
10.The wife, serving Soleimani, Soleimani and his care for the woman and the child, the cook upset with his wife, the matchmaking, slapping her?
11.The mother and child, morose, the daughter and the accidents, upsetting the meals, the trays, breaking the crockery? The mother and her trying to calm the child, occupy it? The matchmaking, her not wanting to marry Soleimani? Her relief when he refused her? The young man, his declaration, her acceptance?
12.The request to use the hall for the wedding, Soleimani agreeing?
13.The celebration, the singing, the food, happiness?
14.Soleimani, having given the gift to the staff, deciding not to sell, tearing up the contract? Going upstairs, lying down and dying? Their discovering his body?
15.A portrait of Iran? Themes of human nature – and universal message?
