Thoroughly Iranian in its carefully observed detail of character and daily life, Travellers is none the less a dazzling departure for director Bahram Beizai, whose best known film in Australia is Bashu, The Little Stranger. Mesmerising and unsettling in its conflicting tones and fantastical moods, this unlikely Iranian ghost story is a marvellously ambiguous allegory, hovering somewhere between the realms of tragedy and hilarity.

The story begins with preparations in Tehran for a large middle-class wedding. However, preparing to leave for the city the bride's sister suddenly turns to the camera (in an astounding scene) and announces that she and her family will never make the wedding.

When the tragic news of their car crash eventually reaches the disbelieving family, colours dim, the wedding turns into a wake. Guests arriving with gifts quickly adjust to funereal solemnity. When the distraught matriach of the clan insists that the couple still be wed, all those on the guest list end up attending regardless.

The largely Iranian audience I saw the film with in Toronto sat sobbing through the last reel, for a loss one suspects is much greater than that of the films central family. Nonetheless, Beizai's consummate direction should enthrall any audience as he, along with his ensemble of mostly stage actors, brings to life this serious comedy of profound and awe-inspiring insights into joy and grief, life and death.