So, when I made a list of all the films we've watched in 2020, I noticed that we hadn't watched any from the 90s. (Also the 20's and earlier, but never mind that.) So I trawled the Criterion Channel's 1990's films, and this seemed appealing. Well, let's say it was interesting. It's shot entirely in a small part of Tehran, and entirely out on the street (or in buses), and shot as if by somebody surveilling someone (which is sort of the conceit, as you shall see). And the traffic in Tehran (in the 90s, and I assume today) is terrifying. I did get a little nostalgic for the boxy style of cars in the 90s (particularly Japanese and German, which seemed to predominate), but I was also astounded at the cavalier attitude to a tiny little girl crossing busy roads. Here's the essential plot: an adorable little girl (really, she's tiny, but she makes up for it by always shouting instead of talking), who has a cast on her left arm, is seen waiting outside her school with a friend.
The friend gets picked up and she's left alone, her mother apparently very late to pick her up. Eventually she asks an old lady what she should do, and the man talking to her tells her he'll take her to her bus stop on his scooter. Cue a terrifying scooter ride where she sits sidesaddle behind him (so he can't do anything if she should fall off) as they zip off through traffic. She gets off and runs to get on a bus and there are (fairly) absorbing scenes of her eavesdropping on conversations and interactions on the bus (and we discover that buses are sex-segregated, because she keeps getting re-directed to the back entrance of the bus). But gradually the bus empties until it reaches the end of the line and it's not where she expected. Part of her problem is that she doesn't know where she lives, even though she can describe in great detail various landmarks around where she wants to go. A kindly bus driver tells her that she wants the other end of the line and he introduces her to another bus driver who will take her back. But while she's waiting on the bus, the young man whose job it is to herd people on the bus (presumably part of an Iranian scheme for full employment) turfs her off and sends her to the back entrance... then the bus goes off without her... but then the young man comes back to get her and gets her back on the bus, and the bus driver asks her where the hell she went, and she glares at the young man, and then... you hear a voice say "Don't look at the camera, Mina"... and suddenly the whole film changes. Or does it? At any rate, she pulls off her fake cast, storms off the bus, and demands to be given her real clothes. All the while she refuses to say why she's so angry, and we get to see the film crew on board the bus debating (a) what made her flip out, and (b) what they're going to do about it. She can't be talked round, but she still has her mic on, so they decide to follow her, and that's when we get the surveillance-style footage (which can get dizzying, what with the teeming traffic) as she tries to get back to her "real" home. There are some clever bits when she finally offloads the mic (on a store owner near where she lives who (supposedly) recommended her to the film crew (in reality, apparently, she was picked from thousands who auditioned) and we get to see her but hear him, thereby adding to the disorienting unreality of the whole proceedings. So, what did we learn? Not sure, but apparently the two main features of Iranian cinema at the time were charming neo-realism and meta-commentaries on the filmmaking process, and this manages to be both. I'm glad I've seen it, not least because you get a real impression of everyday life in Tehran, but I wouldn't exactly want to watch it again.
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