Museum of Fine Arts, Boston
The Charmer
Directed by Milad Alami
January 24 & 27
Poignant, often heart-wrenching immigration movies come to
theaters every year, and this year, The
Charmer, by Swedish-Iranian director Milad Alami, offers a new slant—the mental
impact on a young Iranian man hustling in Copenhagen for a Danish wife, a
“paper marriage,” in order to escape his dead-end life at home. What Esmail
(Ardalan Esmaili) experiences in the city’s glamorous singles bars slowly
builds to detritus in his mind. The audience never knows him fully—not his
background or his innermost thoughts—but his face shows constant digesting of
the moments that happen to him, as well as his deeper, secret preoccupations. The
script by the director and Ingeborg Topsoe appears to move slowly along, but
actually works quickly and masterfully with a surprising plot. Shortly into the
film, we’re able to gauge that Esmail is basically a decent person, although currently
helpless, hapless, dealing in deception, and approaching desperation. He skypes
his family now and then, sends money home from his work as a moving hand, and shows
respectful behavior to all. But his dark side also shows in his face—the
mounting confusion of living a double life. Even as “a charmer” on the outside,
he can’t completely conceal his inner turmoil. It’s a feat on the actor’s
part to show innocence and darkness at once in the character’s face—Dr. Jekyll
and Mr. Hyde.
Each day Esmail takes meticulous
care of his only dress suit and shirt, which he wears to the high-end bars (far
from his own immigrant housing), where he hopes to attract women. We witness a
chain of his romantic efforts that lead nowhere, with his visa limit ticking
down. It’s painful to watch his flirtation and sex devolve into mere robotic programming,
ultimately revolting even to himself. His basic moral compass has become too
compromised, and we feel the increasing tangle of his mind and emotions. Perfectly
rendered music, camera imagery, and the protagonist’s facial acting convey these
deep emotional states.
A Persian-Danish family draws Esmail
into their circle through lovely Sara (Soho Rezanejad), whom he meets at the
bar one night, and who challenges him with his true motives for being there.
Their relationship naturally grows with each encounter, bringing a sunnier,
more authentic side to Esmail’s character—he’s not only with “his people,” his homeland’s culture and food, but also with
a woman who truly allures him. They fall in love, and sadly the presence of true love
becomes the breaking point for Esmail’s psyche. In his half-maddened state, he
says to Sara but really to himself: “This wasn’t the plan.”
We never know what Esmail’s “plan”
was—was it to marry only in order to remain working in Denmark to support
family back home? After some months or a year, would he divorce? How could he escape
the inevitable mental turmoil of juggling two families unknown to each other? Where
would his identity and self-worth be in such a scenario? It all crashes in on
him and creates a powerful message about the individual’s experience as an
immigrant looking for a lucky break, especially about a young person with an
entire future ahead, who faces the monolithic “make-it or crumble” reality of a
foreign, stratified world.
The great beauty in this story is its
cinematically evoked depiction of Esmail’s mental state—its erosion caused by
venturing out in hopes of a better future (the stunning cinematography is by
Sophia Olsson). Esmail’s meltdown and failure aren’t ultimately failures, for
when his internal eruption settles down, he is given the opportunity to recover
his basic values, and he has gained wisdom. Rather than failing, he has lost at
a gambling game, and one that comes with a heavy emotional toll.
The movie ends with Esmail selling
his upper-class suit to a young, excited Iranian man, and we the audience probably
share the same thoughts as Esmail, as he watches the young man’s masculine
pride showing off the new goods: He’s setting off with the same dream of opportunity
abroad; he has the same hope for his looks, his charm, but soon he’ll discover the
reality of his chances, the reality of the world. Or, maybe he’ll be the one in
a million to luck out, while I’m back here to grow old.
For Dystopian Lovers
Invasion, directed
by Shakram Mokri
January 20 & 23
If you liked last year’s Simulation
by Abed Abest at the MFA’s Iranian film festival, then be sure to catch this
year’s Invasion, by Shakram Mokri.
It’s another dystopian film with the added dimension of futuristic vampires.
The foggy, metallic, dungeon-like cinematography, complementary music, and
mind-bending plot sustain attention, and for many, wonder.
