Kamran Shirdel’s beautiful 35 minute film is to documentary what “Rashomon” is to narrative
Set In northern Iran, the film focuses on a schoolboy from a small village near Gorgan that allegedly saw a train approaching flooded rail tracks. In an act of bravery he set fire to his jacket, ran towards the train and averted a serious and fatal accident.
“Shirdel’s film does not concentrate on the heroic deed promulgated in the newspapers, but on a caricature of social and subtle political behavior – the way in which witnesses and officials manage to insert themselves into the research into this event. Shirdel uses newspaper articles and interviews with railway employees, the governor, the chief of police, the village teacher and pupils, each of whom tell a different version of the event. In the end, they all contradict each other, while the group of possible or self-appointed heroes constantly grows. With his cinematic sleights of hand, Shirdel paints a bittersweet picture of Iranian Society in which truth, rumor, and lie can no longer be distinguished.” —onlinefilmhome.
The film is obviously a satirical poke at the media and how people are so easily divided by it (especially during the 1960′s where hostility between the Iranian authorities and the working class was at a high). However, the film is much more than its subject matter, it is a transcendent piece of cinema by one of the many over looked Iranian documentary filmmakers.
It’s a great example of documentary being used to convey more than a hard hitting subject matter and truly understanding cinemas validly as an art form.
