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My Tehran For Sale (Film)
Rating: M
Running Time: 96
Country: Australia/Iran
Director: Granaz Moussavi
Distributor: Cyan Films
Film Worth: $13.50
Release Date: November 19, 2009
An artful and poetic film, which is also timely considering the current illegal immigration headlines.
An Iranian-Australian co-production, the film is about the kinds of people who made it - Iranian artists driven underground by a repressive regime. It centres on Marzieh (Marzieh Vafamehr in a haunting performance), a stage actress whose work has been banned. She's found a niche in Tehran's thriving underground arts movement, but it's not nearly enough. She meets Saman (Amir Chegini), an Iranian-Australian, at an illegal rave party. They are outside when the party is raided, and those caught are brutally lashed. Marzieh and Saman then decide to set up house in Adelaide, and Marzieh tries to take the legal route to Australia. But as we soon see in ever-widening glimpses into her future, Marzieh makes it to South Australia but, ironically, has even less freedom than in Tehran. She's in detention, at Woomera.
This is a timely release, with illegal immigration making headlines the very day that it was reviewed. It hones in on Marzieh, but illuminates the lives of all who cross her path - each offering an aspect of a larger story about Iran.
In her debut as a writer/director, Iranian-Australian poet Granaz Moussavi uses images to tell a story, and dialogue to paint pictures. She finds beauty in the seemingly ordinary, while also taking cinematic advantage of Tehran's amazing cityscape. She doesn't spoon-feed her audience - the way in which the story is constructed, shifting around in time, forces you to fit things together.
The only criticism is that it's sometimes a little too willfully obscure and self consciously "arty" (like in the experimental theatre scenes). That's a minor quibble, however, because this is a nourishing and exceptional film that you'll find yourself recommending.