Ebrahim Golestan has been called the "lion" of Iranian cinema, and at 89 he is one of the last living figures from the country's first "New Wave". He has also, like all too many of his countrymen, lived in exile for a good chunk of his life, departing his homeland for the U.K. in 1967, returning briefly in the mid 1970s, and finally leaving permanently in 1975 after his second and last feature, "The Ghost Valley's Treasure Mysteries" was released to a not-so-positive reception. I've seen his first full-length film, 1965's "Brick and Mirror", a dark and noirish black-and-white Cinemascope feature about a cab driver's long night of the soul, and it's a great film which I'll be rewatching soon.
"A Fire", Golestan's first film, is one of four short documentaries he made at the beginning of his film career while working for oil companies. It concerns a protracted fire and the attempts over several weeks to put it out by various means, and the footage of the fire and the efforts of the men is all pretty compelling, but what's most interesting is the subtext showing how the lives of villagers and farmers nearby are affected; though there's no overt environmental message here, it couldn't be more clear how disruptive this modern industry is to traditional ways of life. The impressive editing is by Iranian poet Forugh Farrokhzad, Golestan's lover, who was to make her own impressive (and sadly, only) film "The House is Black" a couple of years later.
