SO SIMPLE
Iran, 2008, 95 minutes, Colour.
Hengameh Ghaziani.
Directed by Reza Mir Karimi.
So Simple is the work of Reza Mir Karimi who won many awards for Under the Moonlight and Here a Shining Light. His first film was The Child and the Soldier. He also directed So Far, So Close. Under the Moonlight and Here a Shining Light both won SIGNIS awards.
This is a more straightforward and simple film. It is made in a television style, the focus on one day in the life of a harassed wife and mother.
The film shows the detail of her life, her loneliness, her wanting to consult the
Koran in a phone service (but is always too busy or not available), who keeps ringing her husband who is in an important meeting, is exasperated by her two children, a little boy and an older girl, is helpful to the neighbours, preparing upstairs for a marriage ceremony. However, she becomes increasingly exasperated – and is planning to leave her husband.
1.Women in Iran? The impact of this film for the Iranian audience, women? Men? Universal message? The issue of housewives and mothers?
2.The setting, the apartment, the roof, lifts, out in the streets, the markets, the sense of realism? The musical score?
3.The title, the wife’s life, issues seeming so simple but complex?
4.The visual style, the use of close-ups, the focus on television programs? The pathos – as well as some of the absurdity, the talk shows on marriage, the aerobics classes with the men? The portrait of the wife and mother, for one day, in herself, the television comments she listened to, their comments about marriage and suitability, the pregnant woman on the roof and her wanting her satellite television effective, her fears of the elevator, the wife later bringing her tea? Going upstairs, the friendship, the preparation for the marriage, the suggestions about the mat, the place of the Koran? Her phone calls, trying to get her husband? Weeping? The housework, cooking and cleaning, the pen and getting it out with the vacuum cleaner, her poetry classes? Going out, shopping? With her son, his moodiness, depositing him at school, his not wanting her to wait for him? Going to the shop and talking with her divorcee friend, the customer who wanted to buy a dress – and the friend’s interpretation that he had done something wrong, not selling him the dress? Wanting to buy the shirt, the possibility of a suit? Taking the boy home? The boy and his friend eating cake on the roof? Playing under the bed, Spider-Man?, the mother and her ability to shoot, the boy and his enjoying playing with his mother? The meal with the children, the children and their tantrums? The boy going to bed, the girl and her mother reconciling with her, the hat? The wife packing, waiting, the phone calls? Her husband arriving, his talk about his job, the meal, the suit, his going to sleep? Her going upstairs with the neighbour, coming back downstairs – waiting? Would she leave?
5.The portrait of the little boy, tantrums, games, school? The little girl, her tantrums, arguing, burning the cooking, going upstairs, sulking with her mother, doing her homework, the mother’s reconciliation, wearing the hat? Welcoming her father home? The husband, his work, preoccupations, the possibility of buying a new house, the meal, the suit?
6.A portrait of the women confined to the house – and the presumptions of the men and of society?
