La loi de Téhéran

More than excellent documentary movie about the fight between Iranian police and the drug traffic kingpins. No action scenes, no gunfights but awesome acting and directing. No length, despite the genuine length of the film, because you are glued to this story. I don't think Hollywood film industry would have made such a film. Here, the drug traffic big shot is shown in such a way that the audiences may feel empathy for him, and not for the policeman who tracks him down and nail him. A very ruthless policeman, who applies the law to the letter, no matter the disgrace on families, no matter pain and suffering that this very same law application provokes.

A very good movie indeed.

A very strong film with a theme unlike all other Iranian films we have seen which focus mostly on personal issues in a changing -and not changing- society. The thematic is the millions of drug addicts in Iran and the fight of a few policemen to control it. The violence used by the police force is appalling as a paling are the conditions hundreds or thousands of homeless drug addicts live in. Also the personal stories of the two policemen in charge create doubts as to their integrity. Questions as where the state and social services are arise and if punishment of the culprits is enough to deal with the enormous problem. All in all a great film, a punch in the gut.

I was simply overwhelmed by the fierce energy of this Iranian crime movie. The story is told from two opposite points of view: one from a detective who tries to nail a drug lord, and the other from the drug lord who tries to bribe the detective. They are both relentless and messed up in their own ways, which made it hard for me to decide which character I should take sides with. Also, some scenes(for example, prison packed with drug addicts) were so real that I often forgot this was a work of fiction. Everything I saw here was chaos : no true justice, no decent laws, no good guys. Very disturbing but a powerful piece of work.

The hunt is on for those supplying all the drugs, by a police force who behave just like the thugs, as they track the felons down, hunting down all over town, before they're hooked like fish and sent to see the judge.

I thought this was a spectacular piece of filmmaking, it flowed effortlessly from start to end, the story building superbly with each subsequent piece elegantly dovetailing into the next. It leaves you with a view, albeit a cinematic one of a world of addiction, corruption and exploitation, especially of those with little to lose except their life, which depending on where you sit in the pyramid, will come at your own hands, those around you or the state. The only niggle is the unpalatable process of state executions that those in more civilised parts of the world find so disturbing.

This portrait of a fringe of Iranian society is powerful, a thriller that thwarts conventional criteria to make it a real great movie where we go through all possible human emotions. For me a masterpiece.