The disc label Deaf Crocodile has brought us Russian fairy tales, Czech fantasies, Croatian Sci-fi and Romanian animation, and now it offers a relatively new film by one of Iran’s top filmmakers.
As with many film artists in Iran, Houman Seyedi is a theater talent who also acts, writes and directs. The achievements of Iranian film directors are impressive, especially considering the political conditions in the country; the films we’ve seen tend to be heartfelt and humanistic depictions of people coping with the universal problems — trying to subsist and hold their families together under trying conditions. Thanks to disc companies like Criterion, Iranian exports seen first at film festivals can now be found on excellent quality hard-media home video.
Note: The Deaf Crocodile people have direct contact with director Seyedi, and spell his name with just one ‘y.’ Elsewhere the norm seems to be two y’s. I’m sticking with one.
That title is misleading, to begin with.
The title World War III only makes sense after one sees the movie; it appears to be a literal translation for the Persian (Farsi?) Jang-e jahani-e sevvom. Seyedi’s show has nothing to do with warfare, but it does focus on the human breaking point, the point at which a reasonable and decent man can go ballistic. It’s not an ode to a noble rebel or a tragedy about a misguided terrorist. Every time we think the show will commit to an absurdist statement, it stays focused on the everyday nightmare experience of its sad-faced Everyman hero.
Uneducated Iranian Shakib (Mohsen Tanabandeh) has become rootless and unfocused. He lost his wife and child in an earthquake, has been rejected by his hometown and now drifts about as a day laborer. He spends his pay on the services of a fair-haired prostitute, Ladan (Mahsa Hejazi). She is deaf; Shakib knows sign language. Workers are poorly treated; Shakib’s accumulated belongings all fit in a plastic bag. Like all the workers, Shakib is treated with suspicion and told nothing. But he’s industrious, intelligent and polite, and his reliability is noticed. His reward is to be slammed with what amounts to a 24-hour on-call gig, working by day and guarding the project site by night.
The house and barbed wire compound being constructed turns out to be a set for an Iranian movie about the holocaust. Shakib joins a group of workers chosen to play concentration camp inmates. Subjected to unpleasant make-believe abuse, the confused extras feel like real prisoners. They are hustled into holding pens, made to strip, and finally pushed into a killing chamber. Shakib must sleep in the execution chamber set, even when it floods in a rainstorm. In the movie’s odd scenario Hitler lives at the camp and personally executes disloyal Nazis. Both the crew and the ad-hoc extras think the show is phony and inaccurate.
Then the actor playing Hitler suffers a heart attack, and Shakib is chosen to replace him. Despite his protests, with his beard shaved he makes a halfway decent Adolf. He gets to sleep in the ‘picture house’ representing the commandant’s quarters, but he’s still treated terribly — ordered about, bullied and still working nights as a guard. When Shakib can’t make himself slap another actor on camera, the film’s director (who looks a bit like producer Dino De Laurentiis) gives him a pep talk, and Shakib catches on right away. He’s only asked to walk, stare balefully and shoot prisoners.
All of this ‘normal’ absurd exploitation goes crazy with the arrival on the movie set of Ladan, who says she’s run away from her pimp, who beats her. Shakib breaks rules and steals food to keep Ladan on site, hiding her by day under the floorboards of the picture house set. Ladan wants to break with her life, live with Shakib, and start a family. But the pimp and his thug track them down, and demand a massive payment to set her free…
World War Three stays concentrated on Shakib’s nightmare experience. The struggle for economic survival puts everyone in a battle against everyone else; those with power force others to do their bidding. A laborer can survive only by accepting unfair situations — the movie people make Shakib sign one-sided agreements, that threaten massive legal trouble if he doesn’t do what they say. At various points Shakib threatens to quit, and leave the show without a Hitler; at which point the accusations, threats and trickery start. Shakib tells no-one about Ladan, and he has to make up lies of his own. He’s not on a higher moral pedestal. It’s just the way things are.
Writer-director Seyedi knows how to make his audience care about Shakib and Ladan. His direction and shot choices stay focused in on his characters, yet the supporting cast is large and the sets impressive. He doesn’t appear to be imitating other filmmakers. The sight of the red picture house reminds us of typical Tarkovsky imagery, but that’s about it. Seyedi places and moves his camera in ways that let us forget about its presence. The handsome digital cinematography (at an aspect ratio that’s new to us) doesn’t draw attention to itself.
It turns out that the film-being-filmed is some kind of allegory as well. It appears to have episodes outside the Nazi death camp, because we see an actor being made up as Saddam Hussein. The film’s posters and trailer use very little Nazi imagery — moviegoers would get the wrong idea about the subject matter. The film wasn’t designed to be marketed in the mainstream, so naming it World War III is perhaps not a problem. Film festivals and attendees of foreign fare would go for the picture based solely on Houman Seyedi’s reputation.
The writing, direction and especially the performances have won unanimous praise. As Shakib, Mohsen Tanabandeh communicates a great deal without a lot of dialogue. We know that Shakib is a decent man thoughtful of the needs of others, but his inferior position on the labor totem pole all but requires him to lie to his employers. No matter what they claim, he really doesn’t register on their list of priorities. Mahsa Hejazi’s Ladan seems a dream too good to be true for a man with nothing. To evade recapture she’s willing to hide like an animal.
Terrible things happen in the last act, committed by the film company and Shakib as well. The director’s daughter Zareh (Neda Jebraeili) tries to take Shakib’s side in the dispute, to no avail. Shakib suffers a beating, as the holdup in filming threatens a lot of jobs. The deceit and lies take their toll, until the formerly passive Everyman is motivated to life-altering action.
World War III is an excellent production, especially its rich images. The tacky Death Camp visuals hit the exact right note. The film’s theme would seem to be that the world’s ugly affronts to human decency no longer require Nazi-like monsters … the majority of the world’s people struggle and suffer like slaves, and are powerless to do anything constructive about it. Houman Seeedi and company don’t push this message, but instead plunge us into a believable situation with people worth caring about.
We mentioned Tarkovsky above, but the film also reminds us a bit of both Neil Jordan’s Mona Lisa and Ivan Passer’s Cutter’s Way … in parts. World War III may not be an ideal starting point for the appreciation of Iranian cinema, but we found it to be an engrossing emotional workout.
