DIARY OF A LOVER
Tagebuch eines Liebenden
This is the latest film from Iranian director Sohrab Shahid Saless, who is now based in Berlin. The protagonist of this film is supposedly the boy from Coming of Age (seen in last year's Festival), many years later. Diary of a Lover studies the isolation of an individual within society, a man slowly going mad and living within certain routines.
He works in the meat department of a large store, and is preparing for his annual holiday. His girlfriend, of whom he talks lovingly, has vanished in mysterious circumstances, and his mother, who regularly visits him, has nothing to say to him. He takes out a girl to dinner, but she, too, has little to say.
We watch his solitary life, as he paints the kitchen, or does all his shopping at once so as not to spoil his holiday. Then, gradually, we come to understand the key to his distraught behaviour...