After surprising French audiences with the highly successful La Loi de Téhéran, Iranian director Saeed Roustaee 's Leila et ses Frères (Leila and Her Brothers) is his first film in the official competition at the Cannes Film Festival. Starring Navid Mohammadzadeh, Taraneh Alidoosti, Saeed Poursamimi and Payman Maadi (already present in La Loi de Téhéran). See it in cinemas on August 24!
A veritable fresco (the film lasts 2h39), Leila et ses frères says as much about the very intimate situation of its characters as it does about that of Iran. The siblings face up to the country's changes, while at the same time living with its traditions, confronting the five characters with unresolvable dilemmas: should they stay within the law? Should they sacrifice everything to preserve their honor, or humiliate themselves to succeed? Discussions often lead to dead ends, and getting out of them seems impossible, despite the protagonists' best intentions.
Unfortunately, the film did not win any awards at the Cannes 2022 Festival.
Synopsis:
Leila has dedicated her entire life to her parents and four brothers. Hard hit by an unprecedented economic crisis, the family is drowning in debt and tearing itself apart as their personal disillusions mount.
To get them out of this situation, Leila devises a plan: to buy a store and start a business with her brothers. They each put their life savings into it, but they lack one last source of financial support.
At the same time, and to everyone's surprise, their father Esmail pledged a large sum of money to his community to become its new godfather, the highest honor in Persian tradition.
Little by little, the actions of each member bring the family to the brink of implosion, while the patriarch's health deteriorates.
The trailer :
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Review :
This Iranian family drama is reminiscent of the best films by Ken Loach(Sorry we missed you, Me, Daniel Blake) and the Safdie brothers(Uncut Gems), in its depiction of insurmountable precariousness, the main characters' numerous unsuccessful attempts and their propensity to systematically make the wrong decisions. If you like social cinema, you won't be disappointed. What's more, the constant tension that Roustaee managed to instill in his previous film returns in fits and starts, ensuring that thefilm always remains gripping.
From then on, the film becomes truly moving. The viewer becomes enraged as he watches this family fall into decay, and even when they seem to be getting back on their feet, they end up falling back even further. The dialogues, the film's great strength, and their interpretation sublimate this broken family, whose patriarch prefers to ruin himself to preserve his honor, while his own children are unable to escape their misery.
This obviously provokes strong resentment, and a moving wedding scene, the film's climax, will finish off even the most sensitive viewer. Saeed Roustaee's long-term approach reveals a truly powerful work , from which it's hard not to come away stunned. It's great cinema, hard and frustrating, but the writing is prodigious. What the filmmaker manages to produce is truly impressive!
Dates and Opening Time
Starts August 24, 2022
Average duration
2 h
39 min
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