Ayeh haye zamini

Terrestrial Verses shows what everyday life in an authoritarian regime is like through a series of conversations. Although the circumstances of the conversations vary, they're always between a less-powerful person (facing the camera) and a more-powerful person (a voice off). Each situation is infuriating in its own way, but Ali Asgari and Alireza Khatami mine a vein of absurd humor throughout the film, so that, by the end, we have laughed so hard at these authoritarian fools that they have lost their power. In life outside the film the fools only seem to grow more powerful and more numerous. The film is set in Iran, but its message is both universal and timely. It feels like many more people are very soon going to need Asgari's and Khataim's gift for seeing the absurd and their characters' cleverness in finding a way.

From my perspective as an Iranian viewer, the film feels superficial and exaggerated. It seems to have been created primarily to convey a message, but it lacks authenticity. It appears more suited for foreign film festivals, aiming to provoke the jury's emotions and win awards.

When you cannot create a strong, impactful story, the easiest route is to evoke pity: portray your country as miserable and pitiful, align with prevailing media narratives, and use female and child characters to manipulate emotions and secure recognition.

I am not saying all the narratives are false or unrealistic, but someone whose daughter goes to school, or someone working as a contracted driver for a governmental organization, etc. Would find these portrayals exaggerated and detached from reality.

It seems the writer and filmmaker are depicting an Iran that we do not live in.

Saw this at the Rotterdam film festival 2024 (IFFR). A series of shorts, with a common theme: authority against the common man and woman. Luckily, contrary to what we could expect in Iran, not all scenes were an authoritarian man against a powerless woman. On the contrary, genders were evenly mixed, so the suppression of women in Iran was not the main theme.

Lots of humor involved, despite the seriousness of the respective situations. What happens is very recognizable, also outside Iran, and could overcome us tomorrow.

The shorts are completely unrelated plotwise, just the "authority" gaps were common. Nevertheless, a single counter example was the case of the student against the school director, where the tables seemed turned all of a sudden and the student could leave the room unpunished.

All in all, very satisfied to have seen this, devoid of the well-known Iranian issues. I scored a 5 out of 5 for the audience award after the screening.

Iran cinema has continued to impress me with their ambitious atmospheres, stories, writing, and concepts and this movie is another masterful work.

Presented using interesting setting structures and direction approaches, many of the themes of authority over people and gender problems are well-explored with being mixed of both serious and satirical tones that are strong and appropriate. Many of the dialogue between the characters are amazing and nature, the performances from the cast are great, and the writing and camerawork is honestly great. The filmmaker succeeds on presenting the issues woman and people face in Iran with it's ambitious themes and the style choices and sound designs felt purposeful.

For a short run-time, it succeeds with many moments. Another Iranian masterpiece to add.

A unique film about ridiculous struggles of Iranian people with the Iran's regime, conservatism, Islamism and some crap attitudes of some people.

Family-friendly.

In Iran everything is a struggle, to make you tired and stop you from activism, they wear people down and use them, our regime is corrupt to the teeth.

Such filmmaking in Iran is rare and bold, we should support such filmmakers.

It's an anthology film consists of these short films: Tehran. David. Selena. Aram. Sadaf. Faeze. Farbod. Siamak. Ali. Mehri.

I'm sure it's a shocking film to foreigners.

Funny, cool, social commentary, bold, essential, interesting, well-made, unique, statically shot, tragicomic, critical, bitter, sad & inspiring.

Good direction. Very good screenplay. Good production. Good acting. Good edits. Good film score. Above average audio mixing/editing. Above average cinematography. Cool/critical tone. Moderate-paced. Well-balanced.

I really liked it.

7.5/10.