Review: Deep Breath (2003)
Richard Bean
Directed by Parviz Shahbazi
Cast: Mansour Shahbazi, Maryam Palizban, Saeed Amini.
3 out of 4 stars
This is a study of modern-day nihilism in Tehran. At the beginning, a
body is being retrieved from a dam near Tehran, but there is some
ambiguity as to whether it is a girl or a boy. The ambiguity is
resolved as we see it is a young man seeing how long he can stay
underwater in a swimming pool. Shortly thereafter, Kamran, the
university student, is chatting away on his mobile phone when it is
grabbed by some motorcycle-riding hoodlums. Depressed and in the rain
he leaves his course list behind on the steps of the university, and
goes to see his friend Mansour. They go on a nihilistic spree through
Tehran, keying nice cars, and smashing and stealing things. After
they return their hired motorcycle, they proceed to carjack an
upper-class woman, threatening to "cut off her post-operative nose!"
They drive around Tehran and stay at a mosaferkhaneh (boarding house)
meeting some twins in the process. Kamran unfortunately is becoming
sick and not eating. One night while Kamran is asleep in the back of
their new car, Mansour picks up a flirtatious joy-riding student, Ida,
and they immediately hit it off. Unfortunately when they dropped her
back at the university she didn't give them her phone number... "it's a
dorm, you know". They manage to track her down at the Karaj dam and
get together. But problems arise when she keeps coming back late at
night to the dorm, and because of Mansour's bad driving. Also Kamran
becomes very sick.
The ending is as ambiguous as the beginning (in the tradition of "The
Color of Paradise"). It is obvious what is suggested, but unclear as
to what the moral is. Perhaps that love is the most important thing?
Of course, this film is very controversial in Iran and won't be shown
in Iran outside the Fajr Film Festival, according to pendar.net,
because it sets a bad and depressing example for youth. Many of the
jokes make more sense in the restrictive social climate of today's
Iran. For example when Ida and Mansour are driving on the wrong side
of the road and Ida tells the policeman that Mansour is not her
fiancé, the policeman jokes that "I know, we are in England!". Also
some discussion of their musical tastes may go over the heads of
international audiences.
If this film is ever shown outside Iran I recommend it to people who
want to understand the hopelessness of some of Tehran's youth today.
I enjoyed the film because of its wry humour and because it is quite
daring and gives insight into the lives of such youths.
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X-RAMR-ID: 34371
X-Language: en
X-RT-AuthorID: 1226
X-RT-RatingText: 3/4