Cas de conscience

A mirror of Iranian cinema that reflects the personality of the protagonist from the point of view of the doubt of existence.

"No Date, No Signature" is a character study from Iran and perhaps the best film shown in the U.S. this year to date. It's an engrossing story of an Iranian doctor who sideswipes a motorbike carrying a couple with two small children. He makes amends as best he can but doesn't tell the police as his insurance has lapsed. Several days later a boy's body is brought to the hospital where he works, and he immediately recognizes the name. The boy is said to have died due to food poisoning, but was he in some way responsible?

The acting in this picture is superb and all are Iranian actors. The doctor wrestles with his conscience and decides to autopsy the boy himself. The doctor is the star of the picture, but the man who plays the boy's father is outstanding, the best acting our shores have seen in a long time. I don't do spoilers, but you would have to see this film to appreciate the level of competence by all concerned. Another surprise is how courteously the women are treated, since we have been conditioned to believe that women are considered second-class citizens.

Movies of this caliber are seldom made in the U.S. anymore. Most are made for teenagers and it is refreshing to see a well-made movie for adults. You'll have to work to see it as it's only at one theater, NYC's Film Forum. The title refers to the death certificate, which the doctor will not sign until satisfied.

8/10 - The website no longer prints my star ratings.

No Date, No Sign (2017) is an Iranian movie co-written and directed by Vahid Jalilvand.

Amir Aghaee portrays Kaveh Nariman, a respected forensic pathologist. One evening he has a traffic accident in which no one appears to be seriously injured. However, three days later, a dead child is brought to the pathology department. Dr. Nariman realizes that this boy is the child who had been slightly hurt in the accident.

Leila (Zakieh Behbahani), a skilled colleague and friend of Dr. Nariman, performs the autopsy. The real plot starts at that point.

Navid Mohammadzadeh portrays Moosa, the father of the young boy. He's a powerful actor, and is truly the lead actor in the film.

In fact, all three actors are extraordinarily talented. Vahid Jalilvand is a brilliant director. Director and actors have combined to give us an extraordinary movie. The film will hold your interest in every scene. It will work well on the small screen. No Date, No Signature has a solid IMDb rating of 7.3. I think it's even better than that.

A film was featured at the annual Iranian festival, which alone showed the Sufficiency and Prosperity of the 7th Iranian art, in 2017. Navid Mohammad Zadeh as a multiple artist, In the role of complementary actor, was Valuable in this movie And he was able to once again to show his abilities. The second presence of Vahid Jalilvand as director in his second movie, increased the luck of the project and won the Best Director Award. This was not the end of the story. Without a date, without signature movie, has won other prizes on global festivals, including the Venice Film Festival and the Chicago Film Festival, and certainly this is not the end. A strong script and Thoughtful story The audience is strongly to co-essence imagionary to the two pillars of the story, Amir Aghaei, as Dr. Kaveh Nariman and Navid Mohammadzadeh as Moses. The struggle between the two streams maintains its peak in the first and second part, but in the third part, which is the culmination of the story, it finds a modern nature and the continuation of the flow is left to the audience, an example similar to some successful works of Iranian cinema. In fact, what prohibits all critics from giving full stars can be summarized in a few key questions, which is, of course to be considered. This issue is always in the body of the seventh art, which we do not expect is a perfect conclusion of work. The movie does not have a key sequence that is simply narrated. The sequence that if it was, the richness and the peak of the effect would occur more. The scene of Musa's controversy with the chicken salesman would continue to reach the end point if it continued until the last point, giving the audience the peak of the story's continuation. That the climax of the story is simply narrated is not enough. On the other hand, the sensitivity of Dr. Kaveh Nariman to the core of the story, Amir Ali, can be considered as an artificial sensibility, even in the early stages, before the turning point of the story. Her sensitivities continue in the body of the story, so that he even controversy with her wife. These two aspects can be examined from two angles. The first angle is the sensitivity of his opinion to the accident that led to the sense of a deep sense of responsibility. So that his own criticism leads to his actions for neglect. Another angle is his excessive sensitivity to his obsessions apart from the social responsibility of the entire stream itself. Of course, the body of the initial occurrence of the stream is drawn here, and it is a matter of concern that the person in the stature must pass through it or spread it. Although the main source of the film is due to Dr. Nariman's psychological obsession, the main meaning of the film can be seen from an angle of contrast between conscience and ethics. It can be argued that the output of the work in general has produced a low defect, and the particular audience of the cinema ultimately leads to the conclusion that: Vahid Jalilvand is a Brainy director

In this movie, several seemingly small decisions result in a cascading shower of unexpected and disproportionately unfortunate events. This may sound like heavy-handed Greek tragedy (or Persian tragedy in this case), but the actors and the director keep the movie grounded and real. The acting is very solid.

On the negative side, there were several points where the story is following the lead-up to a key event in some detail and then jumps past the event itself. It seems like an odd and anti-dramatic editing choice.

Note. As with almost any Iranian film for adults, it is a useful corrective for us Americans and our stereotypes of downtrodden Iranian women, to see how tough-minded and outspoken the women can be.