Marmoulak

Humorous, touching and profound Iranian film, I Really enjoyed it a lot : good story, good acting, excellent music...Worth the Time.

Summary: One of the best Iranian movies ever made, but for an Iranian audience only.

Marmoulak is a political/social satire, but its comedy is subtle and better understood by an Iranian audience. I'd like to compare it to "Blazing Saddles", often cited by American movie watchers as one of the funniest movies ever made, while a non-American audience is only mildly amused by it. Cultural differences play a big role.

Marmoulak's power of humor lies in the comments, words, situations and overall behaviour of the characters, which are not always understandable to the non-Iranian crowd. For instance, many of the seemingly innocent comments in the movie are copied or distorted very cleverly from the political/religious slogans, speeches and actions of Iran's religious clergy. Those parts are easily identifiable and enjoyable by Iranians, while non-Iranians may not quite understand the subtlety of it.

That said, the movie is powerful, enjoyable and with brilliant acting. The story is quite simple and has been repeated in many forms before. A jailed thief seizes upon a chance encounter to escape from prison using the stolen clothes of a clergyman. With Prison's warden (depicted as a despotic maniac) after him, he escapes to a border village where the local people think he has been sent for preaching in their mosque. The rest of the movie depicts the thief's efforts to find a way across the border, while playing the role of an unconventional preachers who actually plays a huge role in the life of the villagers.

Parviz Parastooi plays the lead role in a breathtakingly magnificent way, and this fact is again only obvious to an Iranian audience who know exactly the class of people he is trying to portrait. The movie has a good pace; in contrast with other well known Iranian movies such as Kiarostami's and Panahi's works that are typically very slow. Dialogues are extremely clever.

Given 9 out of 10 by this reviewer.

First, I need to thank the Seattle International Film Festival for locating a copy of this movie and screening it. They went to enormous lengths to make sure a few hundred Americans saw The Lizard, but it was worth it.

The film focuses on Reza "The Lizard," a robber doing time in a prison run by a warden who plans to make him go on a "diet for the soul," so that Reza can enter heaven. Reza has obviously had some negative experiences with religion in the past, and this doesn't do anything to change his view. When he sees an opportunity to escape by dressing as a Mullah, Reza, fearless of the religious implications, takes it. Hilarity ensues.

He ends up in a small town where he must pose as the new leader of their mosque. In so doing, Reza is given a unique opportunity: to create a religion built not on the hypocrisy of others and all the negative things he sees other religious people doing, but one that truly represents the positive possibilities of his faith.

I am firmly agnostic and my study of religion is and always has been one born of curiosity rather than personal belief. This movie was inspiring and moving in a way that few others are, not only for its eventual embracement of the good aspects of all faiths but as a simple parable that religion is unique to each person rather than a reflection of the negativity of some of its practitioners.

Unfortunately, it doesn't look like this movie will ever be on DVD, and except for the one copy screened at SIFF 2005 it will probably never make it outside of Iran (where it was banned for being sacrilegious). If you ever get an opportunity to see The Lizard, don't pass it up.

It's rare to see a film that as much as it amuses, it also takes an angle on serious matters. These last fifteen years have seen a series of films flourishing out of the path of some very talented Persian directors, expressing their views on life, on people, on the political issues and so on, through an anthology of subjects that come to show with finesse things that couldn't be said otherwise. "Marmoolak" is one of those. Only here, the destiny of men and women of an entire country subject to the whims of its rulers symbolized here by one man (the fake cleric played with gusto and talent by Parviz Parastui) is shown not by the means of drama, but throughout comedy. And comedy is something that Persians seem to know about. To say that this film is funny is a euphemism. There is situation comedy here, and it is treated with much lightness. But if one goes farther and looks through it, one can easily capture the fate of an entire people. Works like this, in the form of a film or a book, etc, usually help change things. Let's hope this one does. Talent as they say, has no boundary.

Not Iranian, nor Muslim, nor religious, all that makes I'm supposed to have a free open mind to see it, without prejudice, in any way or about... :)

What brought me to see Marmoulak ? I don't know : the ways of God are impenetrable !

Kidding, of course, with not offense to anyone...

Until now this is my first and only Persian movie I saw...

and I enjoyed it a lot : good story, good acting, excellent music...

It's a bitter-sweet comedy, about Reza the lizard, his short adventures in jail, and then a (may I call it like that ?) kind of involuntary redemption...

Don't expect, if you're like me a western European citizen, to laugh very loudly, but to have a certain smile all along the movie...

I mean, following Persian(?) commentaries it seems that depending on your national and cultural background, you will laugh more or less, very loudly....

I didn't... but nevertheless think it is an excellent movie.

It doesn't deal with all the stupid clichés one might have about religion, (any of them) but present an profound human aspect

of anyone trapped in something which was not chosen...

Touching and interesting, I'm glad it entered my library ! Opposing to some comments, I think this good movie is Not only for Iranians...

but if you are an average middle abc/nbc/cnn/fr1/ab1 television type freak, may be you better turn on your TV daily program...

who knows, be careful, it could open your mind !

***A film is never really good unless the camera is an eyes in the head of a poet Orson Welles***