Manuscripts Don't Burn

Saw the movie at London film festival. To be honest most the audience was made up of chin scratching, cardigan wearing liberals that i assume were looking forward to a movie about the indelible fight of man versus the system.

I sat there with my 3 cans of cider and ended up falling asleep for 10-15 minutes during a protracted period of navel gazing around 25 mins into the movie. Having said that, the movie managed to accelerate towards the finish. Instead of having a liberal payoff about the enduring struggle of man it manages to show what i consider the banality of life.

The exploration into the corruption that this movie claims to expose is matched by the cowardice in conviction of the intellectuals and the ability of the protagonists to commit acts unthinkable due to the pressures of the state. There are no heroes, only victims and the last 30 mins are as tough as any movie.

Congratulations to the movie maker for creating an opaque, disturbing, complex and anarchic movie that refuses to provide an explanation but detail the horrors that some seem to be experiencing in Iran. The final shower scene was probably overdone for the astute members of the audience but for me it brought together the numerous face washing scenes and highlighted an inherent truth about what we as humans will endure.