UNDER THE SKIN OF THE CITY (Zir-e-pust-e Shahr)
# stars based on 4 stars: 3 Reviewed by: Harvey Karten Magnolia Pictures Directed by: Rakhshan Bani-Eternad Written by: Rakhshan Bani-Eternad, Farid Mestafavi Cast: Golab Adineh, Mohammad Reza Foroutan, Baran Kowsari, Ebraheem Sheibani, Mohsen Ghazi Moradi, Mahraveh Sharifi-Nia Screened at: Review 1, NYC, 3/4/03
"Under the Skin of the City," by a director who is purportedly Iran's leading woman filmmaker, is as different from "The White Balloon" as "Last Year at Marienbad" is from "Old School." Iran's tendency to make G-rated films about children gives way to a condemnation of Iran's patriarchal society that is severe enough to make one wonder how Rakhshan Bani-Etemad was able to get the picture out of her country and entered into the prestigious Toronto Film Festival and the festivals at Rotterdam and Moscow among other venues. While Americans in their terminal optimism might look upon the characters in her drama as members of a dysfunctional family, Ms. Bani-Etemad wants us to realize that the many problems faced by the family mom, Tuba (Golab Adineh) and her brood are caused largely by the dysfunctional social system in which they find themselves. By exploring the dilemmas of the clan, Bani-Eternad and her co-writer Farid Mestafavi focus our attention on the theocratic government's limitations on the rights of women and secondarily on the pressures that even the men face within that largely youthful society.
Opening with a Tehran street brawl to set the tone of restlessness, the director hones in on Tuba's inner-city kinfolk, which include the ambitious but frustrated Abbas (Mohammad Reza Foroutan), who is an underemployed messenger for a shady clothing dealer, Nasser (Ali Ossivand). Determined to go to Japan where he can make more in a year than he could dig up in a decade in his own country, he has paid $4,000 to an agency which promises him a valued visa. Discovering that his physically disabled dad Mahmoud (Mohsen Ghazi Moradi) has sold the family house to raise the money for his venture, he is guilt-ridden and determined to come back from the Far East so loaded that he will buy four houses for his family and perhaps find an escape for his physically abused married sister.
As a family drama, "Under the Skin of the City" is reasonably compelling. What gives the film its heft, however, is Bani- Eternad's poignant look at how Tuba's family, while sharing pretty much the values of a working-class American household, are restricted by an oppressive social system. Tuba's married daughter, for example, is beaten and though she runs away, the police are determined to catch her and take her back to her abusive man. Tuba herself slaves away in a textile factory which doesn't look like the kind of place whose owners would be harassed by government officials for its lack of safety devices. Abbas, his heart set on proposing to a pretty office worker whom he has never spoken to but to whom he presents flowers through an intermediary, is hampered by his society's refusal to allow young singles to meet and get to know each other (though we hear that Iran's Internet chat rooms are teeming with communications).
Given the bureaucratic hassle involved in getting his visa a problem that Americans do not have since Japan no longer even requires us to get such a document we can almost sympathize with Abbas's decision to put his liberty on the line by engaging in a dangerous, illegal operation.
The picture is framed by an interview that a news team is conducting during Iran's 1998 Parliamentary election. Tuba complains that the TV film is rolling and rolling but nothing is being done by the government to alleviate the distress that she and doubtless a great many others in her city and country must face. This is the sort of film that will get under your skin, given some patience on your part to sort out the diverse scenes that Bani-Eternad uses to put us in the spirit of her story. The ensemble acting is wonderful particularly as family members drive along the road using the boss's car, happy during these moments as they feed oranges to one another. Hassein Jafarian's lens takes us through various Tehran neighborhoods which form an important backdrop to the story, contrasting the modern, computer equipped skyscrapers with the shabby residential areas of Tuba's clan.
Not Rated. 92 minutes. Copyright 2003 by Harvey Karten at Harveycritic@cs.com
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