What is Time? What is Memory? Are we in the past or present -- or some strange, unknowable hybrid of the two haunted by arsonists, bloodsuckers, serial killers and phantom images of our own selves? The films of Iranian director Shahram Mokri straddle the line between genre and arthouse cinema, whether Moebius strip-like meditations on classic 1970s American slasher films (FISH & CAT), political thrillers (CARELESS CRIME), 1980s New Wave sci-fi/vampire movies (INVASION), or offbeat Jarmusch-meets-Tarantino indie mysteries (ASHKAN, THE HOLY RING & OTHER STORIES). It’s small wonder that Abbas Kiarostami in his last film, 24 FRAMES, left a cryptic message on screen in Persian that simply read: “Shahram Mokri.”
ASHKAN, THE CHARMED RING AND OTHER STORIES (ASHKAN, ANGOSHTAR-E MOTEBAREK VA DASTAN-HAYE DIGAR), 2008, Iran (Deaf Crocodile, U.S.), 92 min. Director Shahram Mokri’s first feature is a delightfully offbeat B&W comedy about the mysterious workings of Fate, played out in deadpan Jim Jarmusch-like vignettes. Two blind jewel thieves, a young man who can’t succeed at killing himself, a love-struck police officer and two female morgue attendants find their lives interconnected when an unusual fish is set free and a charmed ring is moved. Watch for sly references to film noir classics including LE SAMOURAI and KISS ME DEADLY in this wonderful and eccentric Iranian gem. With: Saieed Ebrahimifar, Sina Razani, Reza Behboudi, Siamak Safari, Ali Sarabi, Pegah Tabasinejad
FISH & CAT (MAHI VA GORBEH), 2013, Iran (Deaf Crocodile, U.S.), 134 min. A group of attractive young Iranian kite-flying enthusiasts gather at a dismal lake, near a restaurant where two sinister characters straight out of TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE are serving up grisly fare. Shahram Mokri’s breakout second feature is an unclassifiably brilliant, single-shot meditation on 1970s American slasher films like FRIDAY THE 13th but filtered through a purely art-house lens. Eerie, circular and overwhelmingly mysterious, with strange and unexpected tangents, weird tales of phantom lights, and an insistent, repetitive dream logic, FISH & CAT is a “horror” film in the same way Tarkovsky’s STALKER is “science fiction.” With Babak Karimi, Saeed Ebrahimifar, Abed Abest, Ainaz Azarhoush.
INVASION, 2017, Iran (Deaf Crocodile, U.S.), 102 min. Director Shahram Mokri’s third and most formally challenging film continues the time-bending, single-shot experimentation of FISH & CAT (and later, CARELESS CRIME) in a science-fiction / detective / vampire story, with nods to stylized 1980s New Wave-era films like LIQUID SKY. Sometime in the future, teams of tattooed athletes play a vaguely defined sport in an ominous, labyrinthine stadium where a murder has taken place. When police try to reconstruct the crime, teammates of the murdered man force his vampiric twin sister to assume his identity, in hopes of killing her off too. But all too soon time, identity and the bonds of reality break down in another of Mokri’s fascinating, genre-defying creations. With Abed Abest, Babak Karimi, Elaheh Bakhshi, Behzad Dorani.
CARELESS CRIME (JENAYAT-E BI DEGHAT), 2020, Iran, 134 min.One of the most dazzling and enigmatic films in recent memory, Iranian director Shahram Mokri’s mind-bending mystery leapfrogs between past and present, fact and fiction to create an unforgettable picture of Time not as a straight line, but as an elastic, constantly spinning Moebius strip.Inspired by a real-life tragedy, the infamous Cinema Rex fire in 1978 that triggered the Iranian Revolution, CARELESS CRIME follows three “timelines” – of arsonists planning to burn down a movie theatre; of workers and students at the cinema; and of characters within the film screening at the cinema – which may or may not all be happening at the same time.Comparisons abound, to the work of Chris Marker (LA JETEE), to Hitchcock’s VERTIGO, to Wojciech Has’s THE SARAGOSSA MANUSCRIPT, but Mokri’s film is a magnificent, multi-faceted puzzlebox all its own.Time and the way Cinema represents it are really the main characters in CARELESS CRIME, alternately reinforcing and frustrating each other – all fueled by a tragedy so ferocious that it’s literally burned a hole through the fabric of reality.(In Persian with English subtitles.)Winner of the Bisato d’Oro Award for Best Original Screenplay at the 77th Venice Film Festival.
directed by: Shahram Mokri
starring: Babak Karimi, Abolfazl Kahani, Adel Yaraghi, Behzad Dorani, Elaheh Bakhshi, Abed Abest, Saeed Ebrahimifar, Ainaz Azarhoush, Sina Razani, Reza Behboudi, Siamak Safari, Ali Sarabi, Pegah Tabasinejad
2009-2020 / 467 min (combined) / 2.35:1, 1.78:1 / Persian DTS HD-MA 5.1
Additional info:
- 4-disc Region A Blu-ray Set
- Nearly 4 hours of Q&A
- INTERVIEWS WITH DIRECTOR
- BEHIND THE MIND OF SHAHRAM MOKRI (22 min)
- New artwork by Tony Stella
- English subtitles
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