Filmed clandestinely in Iran (as the director Jafar Pahani had already been imprisoned for criticizing the Iranian regime) this movie somehow manages to combine farce with political commentary. Vahid, an ethnic Azerbaijani auto mechanic, recognizes a man who brought his car to his garage, as the man who had tortured him in an Iranian jail. He kidnaps the man, and is ready to kill him, when he starts to have doubts over whether it is the right man or not. His torturer had a prosthetic leg, and this man did too- but was he the same man? He carts his hostage to various people who had been in jail with him and who had suffered at the hands of the same torturer, and most of them, too, are not absolutely sure. But if they kill an innocent man, doesn’t it make them as bad as the torturer?
This is an excellent movie. In the last minutes of the film, I could hardly breathe. It won the Palme D’Or at Cannes as well as a special award at the American Film Institute, and was shortlisted for many other awards. It’s good.
My rating: 4.5/5
Seen because: I enjoyed his earlier film Taxi and I knew that this one had won many awards. I saw it as part of our Second Saturday Sinema with my Melbourne Unitarian Universalist Fellowship friends. Seen at Palace Westgarth.
The Resident Judge of Port Phillip 