Gagooman

It has been a long time that Iranian cinema has been producing films which are based on innocent child protagonists.This is an intelligent, politically correct move on behalf of directors in order to avoid troubles with censors.This has worked well with international audiences too as numerous Iranian films have won awards at major film festivals.But this has somewhat stifled creativity as there are also many unconventional stories which could be told without bothering to feature young and innocent children.Mohammad Rasoulof is one director whose films do not fall into "films about children made by adults" genre.Serious audience remember him for his second film "The Iron Island".Gagooman (The Twilight) is an extremely simple yet highly incredible début film directed by Mohammad Rasoulof.This film is an earnest attempt to document how prisoners can be reformed.Much of the film's cast is made up of talented non professionals and shots of prisons and its interiors have been nicely filmed in order to convey a sinister yet claustrophobic environment.This is a film to be discovered by those viewers who would like to encounter a different kind of Iranian film.

What can you say about this film? Well...first off, there's an ungodly amount of still shots that seem to carry on forever. Secondly, the acting...oh the acting...I don't speak Iranian, but I know a little about human emotion...and these actors possessed little emotion. In one scene, it looked like they were reading scripts, in fact, I am almost positive...hell, I bet my life on it. The storyline seemed promising, however, within minutes of the films opening, you could tell that the storyline would be overshadowed by every negative aspect listed above. As far as the movies strengths, the wedding scene seemed very realistic, in fact, I'd swear it was. Overall, I gave it a 2 out of 10. Don't watch it. For real. I am not lying. Don't watch this film.