The Deserted Station
Montreal World Film Festival
MONTREAL -- Alireza Raisian's quiet drama is based on an idea by Iranian great Abbas Kiarostami, and some of the master's delicately precise filmmaking technique seems to have rubbed off on the director. This beautifully detailed story of a man and woman coming to terms with two miscarriages when they're stranded in a small town full of children is both intensely thoughtful and wonderful to look at. Festival exposure should be forthcoming, and art house screenings are a distinct possibility. "The Deserted Station" received its world premiere in Montreal, where it played in competition.
During a cross-country trip, a married couple (Leila Hatami and Nezam Manouchehri) swerve to avoid a deer and damage their car. In return for a schoolteacher's help in repairing the vehicle, the woman has to take a class at the local school. The woman, it transpires, is suffering from the fact that she's had two miscarriages. But the local schoolchildren become attached to her and follow her out of the village after the car is fixed.
From this simple premise, Raisian constructs an atmospheric film that's anything but bland. The wife's problem is never directly addressed, and the characters instead have conversations about the minutiae of life and the little problems of the villagers. Instead, a marvelous scene in a deserted rail yard, in which she searches for a group of children playing hide-and-seek on two abandoned trains, is used to show how she feels. The final scene, in which the children can't be dissuaded from following behind the car, is also very good, reminiscent of early Iranian New Cinema classics like "The Jar".
Mise-en-scene is careful, and Raisian -- who has produced films for Kiarostami and Mohsen Makhmalbaf -- makes good use of surrounding natural locations like rock formations for atmosphere. Interestingly, Raisian says that Kiarostami had the idea for the story at the exact location where he ultimately shot the film.
MONTREAL -- Alireza Raisian's quiet drama is based on an idea by Iranian great Abbas Kiarostami, and some of the master's delicately precise filmmaking technique seems to have rubbed off on the director. This beautifully detailed story of a man and woman coming to terms with two miscarriages when they're stranded in a small town full of children is both intensely thoughtful and wonderful to look at. Festival exposure should be forthcoming, and art house screenings are a distinct possibility. "The Deserted Station" received its world premiere in Montreal, where it played in competition.
During a cross-country trip, a married couple (Leila Hatami and Nezam Manouchehri) swerve to avoid a deer and damage their car. In return for a schoolteacher's help in repairing the vehicle, the woman has to take a class at the local school. The woman, it transpires, is suffering from the fact that she's had two miscarriages. But the local schoolchildren become attached to her and follow her out of the village after the car is fixed.
From this simple premise, Raisian constructs an atmospheric film that's anything but bland. The wife's problem is never directly addressed, and the characters instead have conversations about the minutiae of life and the little problems of the villagers. Instead, a marvelous scene in a deserted rail yard, in which she searches for a group of children playing hide-and-seek on two abandoned trains, is used to show how she feels. The final scene, in which the children can't be dissuaded from following behind the car, is also very good, reminiscent of early Iranian New Cinema classics like "The Jar".
Mise-en-scene is careful, and Raisian -- who has produced films for Kiarostami and Mohsen Makhmalbaf -- makes good use of surrounding natural locations like rock formations for atmosphere. Interestingly, Raisian says that Kiarostami had the idea for the story at the exact location where he ultimately shot the film.
- 10/3/2002
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
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