Crimson Gold

Crimson Gold, one of the best films of the year, is absolutely stunning from start to finish. It's gritty and captures the essence of the social struggles in Iran while consistently delivering messages on the struggles we all face in life regarding love and relationships. It's a humanistic film that is extremely subtle, which turned off several viewers (as does Taxi Driver, one of my all-time favorites). Jafar Panahi's slow pacing doesn't allow the film to go into incoherent territory, but again, some viewers may be turned off by this. The pacing is really what allows the messages to set in and provoke the viewers thoughts. It's worth every second of your time, don't miss this gem.

9/10

This is a bit of a dream team coming together for a recent iranian film: Kiarostami writes and Panahi directs. And the film is an appropriate hybrid. It has the sloow, thoughtful, gritty realistic, real-life dialogue laden, meandering-but-focused story that Kiarostami makes, along with the focus on social injustice that Panahi had in the Circle.

It's on the top ten for Iranian film which means definitely get it. Great film. Great photography. Lots of teheran and iranian morality police -- cool. If you can't stand movies that don't have a clear Hollywood plot -- if you don't like art house movies -- if you get bored or tired in slow movies -- don't rent it.

"He motorbikes every evening to neighborhoods he will never live in, for a closer look at what goes on behind closed doors. But one Night, Hussain tastes the luxurious life, before his deep feelings of humiliation push him over the edge."

It's sad to see reviews - saying this is a boring movie... This movie is so good, that I totally forgot about WATCH or even Time. Hussain is one of the most interesting characters I have ever seen... and with no doubt Jafar Panahi with his 'The Circle' and 'Crimson Gold' one of the most talented directors of our time...

thx for this movie... I really enjoyed watching it on Tbilisi International Film Festival (just today)and I hope the movie gets the main prize...

In September of 1980, as pretty much the first military operation of the Iran-Iraq war by ground forces, Iraqi forces captured the border post at Shalamcheh. Shalamcheh was later to be the site of the largest battle of the war, Operation Karbala-5. A passing reference to Crimson Gold's main character, Hussein, having been at Shalamcheh is made in the film. So what's quite easy to miss here, for a casual Western viewer, is that protagonist Hussein Emadeddin, sometime pizza deliveryman, is a war veteran. An Iranian viewer would be expecting this anyway; it was a huge war that engulfed the generation that Hussein belongs to. Not that many Iranians will see this movie, all Panahi's films are banned in his homeland. Shalamcheh is a resonant name to Iranians, and now contains a war memorial which many travel to. Part of the battle involved "human waves" which is to say lightly armed men, in large quantities charging the well-fortified Iraqi positions, basically suicide attacks. There are stories during the war of young men, apparently volunteers, charging the minefields, in order to clear them for the more experienced soldiers.

The Iran Iraq war was a particularly unpleasant throwback: commentators have compared it to World War One due to the predomination of trench warfare. In both wars for example there was the use of mustard gas, machine gun nests, shelling, and barbed wire. I think it's pretty much implied that Hussein has been a victim of the war. He's been taking cortisone on a long term basis. Due to the copious side effects, you don't do that unless there's something severely amiss, he would have to have a severe long term illness. Prolonged use of cortisone can be prescribed to treat severe lung disorders, I would suggest that Hussein may well have been gassed (hundreds of thousands of Iranian soldiers were gassed by sulphur mustard during the war, plus mustard was used at Shalamcheh during Operation Karbala-5, on civilian populations as well as Iranian troops).

The side effects of long term cortisone use include insomnia irritability, depression, swelling, obesity, diabetes, and depressed immune response. At one point Hussein has to climb four stories to deliver a pizza when a lift is out of order and the tenant won't come down; in the light of his condition, this appears rather more tragic. The character is very easy to sympathise with because, Hussein Emadeddin is played by Hussein Emadeddin, also a pizza deliveryman with severe health problems. There's a lot of realism here.

When thinking of post-war art in film, the term noir floats to the surface. Noir developed as an art form, if not necessarily an aesthetic, as a response to the zeitgeist of the Second World War's aftermath. An anonymous individual from the University Of San Diego has put it better than I can: "The historical setting is the contemporary world that has been corrupted and lost its moral certainty. The prevailing cynicism of characters reflects the reality of the atomic bomb, Cold War, totalitarianism, propaganda, Hollywood blacklist, corrupting power of the government and press. World War II fragmented men, caused them to feel adrift, insecure, alienated, a feeling of having "gone soft" and lacking power to control their lives. The liberal movement was in crisis, due to powerful forces of communism and materialism, causing a loss of faith in progress and man's innate goodness."

Since the war there's been a crisis for the liberal cause in Iranian society, which is referenced at one point by Hussein's friend Ali, who asks what it was like in (pre-theocratical) times when women walked around naked (without veils). It's clear that there's not much fun in the Iran of this world, in one scene Hussein asks a fifteen-year-old policeman if he's ever had fun, the young chap isn't even sure what the word means, and I think that makes two of them.

Despite Hussein having been pretty much left on the scrapheap, rotting in a dingy apartment to the tune of squeaking rats, he's a nice guy, and tries his best to be kind to folk. However, after a series of humiliations, he has had enough and commits a hideous folly. It's a film about injustice that manages to be, at the same time, warm-hearted, staggeringly beautiful and polemical. You can really take Hussein Emadeddin into your heart. Which is rare in a cinematic world where men are often armour plated and hard to love.

My respects for a profoundly humane film. Quite ironically it appears that Jafar Panahi was arrested within the last week whilst giving a dinner party at his home, an absurdity that you might think would make a good scene in a Panahi movie.

Jafar Panahi is one of the best directors of Iran,his works are upon the best movies of the world,showing the social problems of Iran,after wards Sohrab Shahid Sales is the best choice for watching movies,Crimson gold is the story of Hossein a soldier in Iran-Iraq war who got toxicated by chemical bombs is a mugger,and he delivers pizzas when doing his job he confronts completely different situations which his within is dazzled by them,he saw his friend which he wad a soldier too ,in a luxurious house,Hossein delivered pizza to his house and the price was 20.5 $,he paid him 21 bucks instead an d told him ,keep the tip,he saw the pain if society,he saw the pain within,every time he went to the jewellery's galleries he confronted with shocking prices, this movie is unrealizable for foreigners because they don't know the picture of our society and it's levels, first our society had three levels but the second level is vanishing and there will be only the level that lives in poverty ,and the level that is vomiting money, this movie is not the best movie,it's good but it has some boring scenes,but the direction,camera angles are good, this movie has somethings hided behind the scenes,you should know Iran to see this movie by the way i give it 7.2 out of 10