MODEST RECEPTION
Paziraie Sadeh
"Starts as a top-notch black comedy, and segues into something darker still and very serious, without ever missing a beat." - FilmInk
Filmmaker Mani Haghighi (Men At Work, MIFF 07) fills the multiple roles of producer, writer, director and actor in this absurdist provocation about a rich couple distributing plastic bags of money in the Iranian provinces.
Haghighi plays Kaveh, handsome and possibly a touch mad. Taraneh Alidoosti, who also appeared with Haghighi in the revered About Elly (MIFF 09), is his partner in a seemingly duplicitous game of humiliation disguised as an act of charity. Moving cleverly from the comedic to the chilling, the film teases both the audience and its ‘victims' from start to finish in a mission that gets increasingly bizarre and shocking.
Winner of the NETPAC prize at this year's Berlinale.
“This original, sophisticated film reminds us once again of the continued vitality of the Iranian film industry.” - Screen Daily
D/P Mani Haghighi S Mani Haghighi, Amir-Reza Koohestani WS Iranian Independents L Farsi w/English subtitles TD DCP/2012
Read an extended in-depth article on MIFF's Iranian films at Senses of Cinema.