Any film opening with a dramatic crime scene before spiraling back through time to reveal the cause should be treated with suspicion.
Although it feels like a pseudo-clever technique to give the character – and the movie itself – artificial weight and solemnity, this reaction is a response to the Hollywood cheese that most of the movie-going public is routinely subjected to. The Iranian film “Crimson Gold” – showing tomorrow and Saturday at the Wexner – is a different type of movie.
Directed by Jafar Panahi and written by possibly the most famous Iranian filmmaker, Abbas Kiarostami (the two collaborated on 1996’s award-winning “The White Balloon”), the film is a character study of a Teheran pizza boy whose occupation allows him insight into the hidden side of Iran’s oppressive society.
The usually silent Hussein (Hossain Emadeddin) is a lumbering, awkward man whose size betrays his invisibility. In super-oppressive Teheran, the lone pizza boy on his moped is treated like a shadow. Police and civilians look through him, and the “Crimson Gold” could easily be a silent film if not for Hussein’s motor-mouth side-kick, a small man named Ali (Kamyar Sheissi), to whose sister Hussein is obliquely engaged.
The climatic moment – coming in the first five minutes of the film – finds Hussein in the midst of a failed robbery – a situation made increasingly ridiculous as the film proceeds, and the audience is exposed to Hussein’s ineptness.
Attacking a number of contemporary issues, “Crimson Gold” most often aims at the wealth chasm that is a reality in Iran. In his occupation, Hussein bridges the gap between rich and poor, delivering to absurd palaces but living in penury. When he and Ali find a woman’s purse – containing a bauble – they blur the lines. While they possess the ring, they are unable to pawn it, and are under immediate suspicion for having the piece.
This situation – aggravated by Hussein’s interaction with an especially decadent young man who invites the pizza boy in – is part of the chain of events that culminates with Hussein’s presence in – and culpability for – the jewelry store burglary.
While investigating the disparate situations of Teheran’s economic classes, Panahi creates a visual masterpiece that is reminiscent of, at times, cinema obscura and silent film. He also manages to explore censorship issues in Iran – while simultaneously avoiding those same censors.
Women – beyond Ali’s sister – are rarely shown onscreen, although they are often discussed – a certainty in a culture that criminalizes fraternization between the sexes. Hussein’s palpable – and Ali’s vocal – loneliness is testament to that reality.
Hussein’s detachment allows the audience to see Teheran through truly impassive eyes, and to form judgments as objectively as an anthropologist. The film leaves one satisfied that this is, in fact, what the city – and the country – is like.
The film also succeeds because – unlike American cinema, in which an actor may research an occupation to play it effectively – Emadeddin is actually a pizza boy, not an actor, lending him credibility and experience.
“Crimson Gold,” be warned, is slow and methodic. Its scenes run over-long and as a thriller, it lacks the action and adventure of its genre-mates. However, given the proper patience and mindset, the film is a wonderful window into an unseen culture.
“Crimson Gold” plays at 7 p.m. tomorrow and 9 p.m. Saturday at the Wexner Center for the Arts’ Film/Video Theatre. The screening will cost $4 for students.
