Ici sans moi

I haven't read Tennessee Williams' play The Glass Menagerie , so far , so I can't comment on the film as an adaptation. I enjoyed this version , and I'm sure that I'll read the play . The plot was good enough to make me and all the people in the cinema satisfied .

All the cast were amazing and Saber Abar acted like a star again . His work has really progressed and is full of emotion . He shows that he could play such roles ; Sad , forlorn and sometimes irascible and sorehead , as we saw him in About Elly (2009) . Negar Javaherian had shown that she is able to deal with such roles ; What she played in Gold and Copper (2011) was also a masterwork as an M.S patient , and also her different work in Before the Burial ( Tanha do bar zendegi mikonim (2008) ) as Shahrzad a young , active and hopeful girl who made a different view of life for Siamak (Alireza Aghakhani). Parsa Pirouzfar and Fatemeh Motamed Aria were also well acted .

The music was also mesmerizing and I really love it , particularly the music at the end of the movie which unites folk and modern musics .

And about cinematography ; I liked it too . hand-held camera without being jerky could help the director and his cameraman for showing stress and suspension in some scenes .

Overall , this film was one of my favorites among the films I saw in the cinema this year . I'm sure that I'll buy and watch it when its DVD released .

Here Without Me is a free adaptation of Tenessee Williams's The Glass Menagerie. The writer-director Bahram Tavakoli has skilfully & successfully changed the setting to Iran. The characters though are unmistakably Williamsian: dreamers trying to escape from the harsh realities of life. The mother (Fatemeh Motamed-Aria) dreams of finding a husband for her crippled daughter (Negar Javaherian). Her son, & the main breadwinner in the family (Saber Abar) hates his job in a warehouse & really wants to be a poet. He spends most of his free time at the movies. When, at his mother's behest, he invites his best mate (Parsa Pirouzfar) to dinner at their house, it appears that a suitor may have been found for his sister.

Here Without Me showcases an acting master class. All the actors are excellent but the two female leads are outstanding (Motamed-Aria won the best actress award at Montreal Film Festival). Though it is difficult to escape the film's theatrical origins, on the whole this is a very successful adaptation which compares favorably with the best Hollywood adaptations of Williams's works. Recommended.