Boston Festival of Films from Iran

Janurary 17–27, 2019
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.