The Un Certain Regard section of the Cannes Film Festival is known for its impressively bold films. Such is the case with Chroniques de Téhéran, directed by Ali Asgari and Alireza Khatami. This Iranian film, shot in response to the country's revolution in 2022, recounts a scene from the daily life of ten Tehranis. Each of these characters is the hero of a seven-minute segment, shot in fixed sequence, during a conversation with an anonymous interlocutor.
A job interview, a summons to the police station, a shopping trip... all these segments have one thing in common: they show the worst absurdities caused by the deprivation of freedom in Iran. A father who can't call his son what he wants, a woman accused of not wearing her headscarf, a filmmaker censored by the government, and so on. What's more, each segment follows an increasingly older character: a newborn, a child, a high-school girl, a young adult, and so on, until an old man at death's door. This sequence skilfully symbolizes that an Iranian is deprived of his freedoms throughout his life, and will never be able to live life to the full.
It's an extremely dark and sad theme, and the two filmmakers illustrate it with a form rarely seen in cinema. During each of the sequence shots, the discussion is shown only from the point of view of its character, and the interlocutor is never visible. In this way, the filmmakers demonstrate the coldness and lack of empathy of Iranian society, the worst of which is shown here. And the interlocutor's words are always ragingly violent. It's not hard to imagine the Iranian people revolting when such scenes of humiliation are part of everyday life. In fact, as Ali Asgari and Alireza Khatami explained before the Cannes screening, all these little stories are inspired by real-life testimonies. A film not to be missed, so unique is it.
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