If
you dance through the streets of New York, like you are in a vintage MGM
musical, you will get a lot of quizzical looks, but people will also appreciate
your eccentricity. Not so in Tehran, where the authorities are distinctly
unamused by eccentricity and hardliners still maintain a hostile stance towards
music in general. However, Bahram Farzaneh has the mother of all earworms stuck
in his head and he can share it with others in Bahman Farmanara’s I Want to Dance (trailer here), which screens
during the 1st Iranian Film Festival New York.
After
a minor accident, Farzaneh can suddenly hear an infectious Persian dance song
in his head. It is so vivid, it is like he is picking up a radio signal. The
widowed writer with decades-long writer’s block is not concerned by this turn
of events. He just wants to dance. If people lean in close enough, they can
hear it too.
Suddenly,
the morose Farzaneh has a spring in his step. In the past, he might have been alarmed
by the unnamed woman—of questionable repute—who runs a rather casual extortion
con on him, but the rejuvenated Farzaneh converts her into an unlikely platonic
friend. He even agrees to write her story, even though he has no idea what it
is, but the creative license he takes is inspiring—and liberating.
There
is more whimsy in Dance than you
usually find in Persian cinema, but there is still a serious undertone of elegiac
sadness. Due to the occasional flashforward, we understand things maybe do not
work for Farzaneh as we might hope, but that old cat still takes those lemons
and makes lemonade.
Maybe
we are making an allegorical reach (if so, why stop now?), but to an outsider,
it looks like there are parallels to be drawn between Farzaneh’s big dancing in
the street musical number and the Green Revolution protests. One minute
everyone standing shoulder-to-shoulder, sharing a moment of glorious camaraderie
and the next minute, it is like it never happened. Yet, Farzaneh still has the
song in his heart.
Nevertheless,
the really bittersweet stuff involves Farzaneh’s undefinable relationship with
the woman. Reza Kianian and Mahnaz Afshar develop some wonderfully ambiguous,
sly bantering chemistry together. Omid Sohrabi’s wistful screenplay avoids most
of the standard issue clichés, like “Madame,” Farzaneh’s torch-carrying
neighbor lady, who chooses to befriend the mystery lady and get in on their game
rather than resenting her as a rival.
I Want to Dance is either considerably
sadder or quirkier than this review makes it sound. Somehow, Farmanara balances
the vibe on a knife’s edge, vacillating between the two moods. As an added
bonus, the big centerpiece musical number is a real showstopper. Frankly, the
film addresses all kinds of hot button issues, most notably including police
conduct, gender inequalities, and mental health treatment, but it never feels
political. Highly recommended, I Want to
Dance screens this Saturday (1/12), as part of the 1st IrFFNY,
at the IFC Center.
