Shahr-e ziba

Every single film by Asghar Farhadi has beautifully captured a different section of Iranian society & Beautiful City is no different. The title referring to a juvenile detention center, Beautiful City tells the tale of A'la, whose friend Akbar has just turned eighteen which means he will be executed soon for the crime he committed two years ago. Knowing that Akbar has repented enough in the two years, has a good heart & doesn't deserve this punishment, A'la gets out of that place and later, accompanied by Akbar's sister Firoozeh, tries his best in persuading the victim's father to spare the boy from certain death.

The movie also shows that no matter how restrictive a society is, money can buy everything, including life & death. As the movie progresses, we find out that the lives of these characters aren't as transparent as we assumed in the beginning and the story slowly becomes a gritty examination of moral & human complexities and no character is spared from making a life-altering choice.

Covering the themes of love, corruption, sacrifice, forgiveness and how the confinements of society & religion sometimes stops a person from going with what the heart desires, Beautiful City is another thought-provoking cinema from Farhadi with a universal appeal that, in the end, may leave you little lost but you'll come around eventually. Also, it was after this film that Farhadi started crafting one masterpiece after another, so if you've seen his later films before this one, like I did, I suggest that you don't have the expectations of Fireworks Wednesday, About Elly or A Separation from this film.

"Beautiful City (Shah-re ziba)" is an intense, universal story of love and death within societal strictures, as much as stories by Shakespeare, Tolstoy, Henry James, Edith Wharton, I.B. Singer or O. Henry, etc. etc. It just happens that here love from parents, children, siblings, friends, spouses and suitors has to find an outlet within Islamic law as practiced in contemporary Iran so they are silhouetted against extreme options.

Writer/director Asghar Farhadi is as observant of the power of human emotions as those masters in letting the story and characters unfold slowly like an onion. Each becomes more complex than we see at first; each has reasons motivated by strong feelings that teeter between sacrifice and fulfillment.

All the characters have choices to make - and feelings they cannot choose to control. A father's grief is as implacable as the undying love of his daughter's boyfriend. A mismatched couple (a spirited Taraneh Alidoosti as the woman "Firouzeh") falls in love without ever touching or exchanging an endearment (and completely enclosed in clothes, as a lesson to Western cinema). All know that if they compromise they will be diminished or something irretrievable will be lost. As each must ask just how far to go for love, they are trapped as much by human nature as by the stringent details of Islamic law (with resonance for any country that has legal revenge through the death penalty).

The character who takes over the heart of the film is a familiar figure in every culture - the confident negotiator who could talk the devil out of whatever, with charm, wile and persistence. A thief, he is at equal ease creatively debating with his jailer as with an imam. But in a short period of time this incipient "Milo Minderbinder" (as in "Catch 22") dramatically learns that the mysteries of the human soul may be beyond even his bargaining. Striving to save his best friend's life and finding unexpected ramifications whatever he does, young Babak Ansari as "A'la" grows before our eyes.

None of the characters is a stereotype. The jailer is like a sympathetic social worker. The imam is very practical about life (though oddly his quoting of Koranic verses aren't translated in the subtitles). The sister stands up to abuse. The teenage murderers acted out of deep love. Even the strict, abusive father is seen as crazed with a sorrow he cannot let go. So there are no Hollywood endings to their lives.

The look of the film seems like faded 1940's Hollywood Technicolor, with a bluish tinge, making it look old fashioned, even as we see a Nike cap and other miscellany of modern culture among the evocative atmosphere of crowded jails, rooms and mosques. The familiar issues of drug addiction, poverty, domestic abuse, etc. that complicate love are universal beyond the head scarves and unfamiliar architecture.

The English subtitles are always legible, turning from white to yellow against light backgrounds.

I effectively know nothing of blood money newer than the dark ages, but most of it dates from earlier times still. This movie is set in the present, but at the same time is in the dark ages, and is really meant to face us with the price of life, especially in the prices for the death of a woman against of a man, rage, retaliation, revenge, price of forgiveness, and the whole charade of dealing with this under the Islamic law.

There's nothing much to enjoy here, but there is a lot to understand.

Nonetheless, there is a strong recommendation to see it, as is gifts a lot humanity, connecting it with the viewer at very basic levels.

I really love the tale because in this story you cannot confidently judge which character is rightful.

P.S: "Shahr-e-ziba" Which's been translated to "Beautiful City" is a neighborhood in western Tehran in which the prison of -18 poisoners is located.

The slow, endless Iranian art films, so omnipresent in film festivals since the 80s, are by now, an either love it or hate it proposition. I now fall into the hate it category, jaded and bored by their sheer numbers, similarity of themes, characters, boring landscapes, and slow pace.

However, I do still see a couple every year to confirm, or review my perception of them. Besides, one can't judge all Iranian art films in a certain light, though the art form does tend to make the viewer take those extreme positions. So, I saw this film (called "Beautiful City")here - the name of the juvenile detention center the main character comes from. I found it entertaining and fresh, though the drab scenery and sameness of themes, landscapes, and characters are there.

It's an interesting (and again, entertaining, not endless like most) look at parts of Iranian society not often shown. These include delinquent youth, drug dealers and their hoods, the very negotiable (economically and religiously) Islamic death penalty, and prostitution on various levels.

I wonder whether films like this are shown in Iran? Of course, the masses would never run to see this movie. And obviously, all these Iranian films are intended for foreign (mostly western viewing), particularly at festivals. But I wonder whether anybody can just show up at a cinema and see it, or is it shown at semi-private showings for a select audience. If it is, how can this distorted Islamic government continue?

Anyway, that's the most interesting point of the film. It shows (whether true or not) that the government in Iran is not that Islamic, not that intolerant, somewhat democratic. But the society, under those black clothes, and automatic "God is great" messages, is as corrupt as the world's most corrupt, and more purely capitalistic than the social democratic capitalism we have today.

In the film, everything, from death sentences to pardons, from marriages to an opportunity for a life-saving medical operation, not to mention drugs and people, can be bought and sold with Tomans (Iranian cash).