Any
Iranian film with a history this torturous must talk some pretty serious truth
to power. Banned at home, Kianoush Ayyari’s family saga has been slow to roll
out international, due to the Islamist authorities’ bureaucratic foot-dragging
and finger-wagging. Somehow Ayyari convinced the Iranian State Police’s film
division to put up percent of the financing, but they were less than amused to subsequently
discover they had funded a story about an honor killing. In its way, it is also
a haunted house tale, but it is guilt and denial that torment Kabal’s clan
rather than a spirit. The sins of the past hang over successive generations in
Ayyari’s The Paternal House, which
screens as part of this year’s Film Comment Selects.
The
year is 1929, but it is very much like today when it comes to Islamist
attitudes towards women. The details will be forgotten, but for some reason Kabal
has resolved to kill his daughter for supposedly dishonoring the family. He
will recruit her ten year old brother Motashahn to help bash her skull in and
bury her under the cobblestones of their backroom. Although the outraged uncle
is now duly satisfied, Kabal’s wife Masumeh is suspicious of the cover story.
However, it is not until 1946 that she learn the full truth, with dire
consequences.
As
Motashahn ages from ten to eighty-five, he will continually witness the bad
karma rain down on his family as a result of his crimes. Matches will be
broken, resentments will fester, and their business will suffer. Yet, he keeps
scrambling to maintain the cover-up, while clinging to his twisted notion of
honor.
Frankly,
it is perversely spectacular to watch the plague of misfortunates visited on
Kabal’s clan. There is a grim logic to it all that is profoundly compelling. It
is deeper than just history repeating itself and the sons bearing the sins of
the father, but those truisms most definitely apply in full force.
Even
though the workshop in question and the adjoining courtyard are relatively
spacious, Ayyari creates an unsettlingly claustrophobic atmosphere. The vibe is
unrelentingly tense, but also acutely tragic. Basically, the ancestral home
become a nest of vipers for which the patriarch has no one to blame but
himself.
Obviously,
this is bold stuff in Iran, approaching the outright radioactive. However, a
number of prominent screen actors lent their talents to the controversial
project. They are all quite believable as a family, albeit a severely
dysfunctional one. Yet, perhaps none is more uncomfortably poignant than Shahab
Hosseini as the grown 1990s grandson, who is two generations removed from the
murder, but it still hopelessly mired in its consequences.
