You
could say Majid and Adel have student deferments. They are fifteen and twelve,
respectively. Of course, that is hardly too young to die for Revolutionary
Iran, especially when it was locked in mortal combat with Iraq. They might live
in an Orwellian state prosecuting an apparently endless war, but the brothers
lead desperate Dickensian lives in Finnish-Iranian director Hamy Ramezan’s
short film, Keys of Heaven (trailer here), which starts a
special three-day engagement tomorrow in Los Angeles.
It
is in fact 1984. Majid and Adel are homeless in the great Islamist republic,
but the elder brother insists they keep attending school. Should they drop out,
they would be prime candidates to join the 500,000 other Iranian children who
served in the Iran-Iraq War. They work late into the night as street hawkers to
earn money for a more permanent relocation, because for some reason, Majid has
cut all ties to their widower father. Unfortunately, the dissolute old Kiamarz
still has the brothers’ identification papers, which they will need to sit for
their final exams.
Keys is a dark film
with a bracingly bitter twist that Ramezan skillfully implies rather than
bashing the audience’s heads with it. The film very definitely protests the use
of child soldiers, but it acknowledges (obliquely) even worse crimes. It also
depicts the ruthlessness of the Ayatollah’s thought police in no uncertain
terms. Yet, the brothers’ relationship is the engine driving the film.
Salar
Ashtiyani gives an extraordinarily honest performance as the gaunt Majid. The
young actor maintains a brittle intensity while subtly turning his big
revelations. Yazdan Akhoondi’s Adel reliably serves as a wide-eyed picture of
innocence and Shaghayeh Djodat brings considerable nuance and sensitivity to
bear as the teacher who tries to help the brothers, but lacks a full
understanding of their situation.
