On Friday, Cinematheque hosts the Madison premiere of another reeling and riveting retroactive release from acclaimed Iranian dramatist Asghar Farhadi
Independence Day revelry may have officially concluded, but that hasn’t prevented the Cinematheque from celebrating a newly released piece of Iranian cinema Stateside this Fri, Jul 15, at 7:00p in 4070 Vilas Hall. Entitled after Chaharshanbe Suri (or the Festival of Fire, held prior to Nowruz, the Persian New Year), Fireworks Wednesday (2006) is another fiery domestic drama from director Asghar Farhadi, who’s known for the award-winning A Separation (2011) and About Elly (2009), which also premiered in Madison during its long-overdue US theatrical run last summer. The FREE public screening of Fireworks Wednesday arrives at a simultaneously sorrowful and timely term when Iranian cinema is at particular international attention in the wake of the Jul 4 passing of legendary art house auteur Abbas Kiarostami, the scholarly godfather of the country’s cinema, and one who paved the way for visionaries like Farhadi. But unlike Kiarostami, Farhadi is less concerned with uprooting cinematic construction even if his ambiguous narratives also strive to break the boundary between narrative and documentary; they are carried by the clarity of formal dialogue, as A Separation has garnered more than a few comparisons to Ingmar Bergman’s serial, Scenes from a Marriage (1973).
Hamid Farokh-Nejad as Morteza
That same framing of chamber drama, co-authored with Mani Haghighi, informs this earlier feature and examination of the dynamic of multiple relationships through a dysfunctional central marriage between the hypersensitive Morteza (Hamid Farokh-Nejad) and Mojdeh (Hedieh Tehrani). Things have already begun to unravel as young bride-to-be Rouhi (Taraneh Alidoosti, of About Elly) arrives at their upscale Tehranian apartment as a housekeeper, with a shattered living room window as a metaphor for fragility and emotional ill repair. Mojdeh has convinced herself that Morteza is having an affair with the downstairs hairdresser, Simin (Pantea Bahram), and decides to recruit Rouhi to prove what may really be happening inside the salon. Throughout the feature’s slow burn, Farhadi adopts Hitchcock’s masterful methods of suspense, treating the question of marital fidelity as if it’s the potential murder plaguing Jefferies (Jimmy Stewart) in Rear Window (1954). Morteza’s confidential phone conversations with an unknown caller confirm Mojdeh’s gnawing speculation, as she hoists herself onto the bathtub to further listen through the wall vents; but the scales then tip in Morteza’s favor with his faithful on-screen behavior, asserting innocence in the face of his wife’s surveilling paranoia and manipulative indecisiveness pertaining to a trip/move to Dubai.
Taraneh Alidoosti as Rouhi
Perpetual unease is also defined by sounds of firecrackers exploding in the urban streets during the day and looming night, amplifying and foreshadowing the inner turmoil and verbal arguments that will inevitably flare into physical disturbance. But Farhadi continues to persuasively add layers and dimension to themes regarding the conservatism of Iranian society with Rouhi’s presence, once eagerly awaiting her own marriage, but now forced to stare into future strife. Further discrimination is hurtled by Simin’s landlord, Razaghi, who won’t tolerate a separated/divorced woman living in his building. “As soon as a woman lives alone, people say slanderous things,” Simin honestly retaliates. In this societal circumstance as in every other, women are doubted while men are more resilient to hearsay. Not only does Fireworks Wednesday intelligently consider the element of trust as it pertains to spiritual disconnection, but the film dissects it in cultural terms of sex and gender as well. Coupled with Hossein Jafarian’s refined cinematography, at first evidenced in the title credits close-up of Rouhi’s hand waving like a flag out a bus window, expressing the jubilation for her impending wedding ceremony, the film’s visual impressions are continually and subtly reinforced. This is best exemplified in a shot of Mojdeh and Morteza’s wedding photo hanging on the side of a bookshelf as truths and falsities of their barbed words irrevocably entangle themselves.
- Fireworks Wednesday screens on 35mm this Friday, July 15, in Cinematheque’s regular venue, 4070 Vilas Hall, at 7:00p as part of the “Summer Specials” series. Admission is FREE.