This was a delightfully devastating surprise of a film. After watching Marcel the Shell and Banshees of Inisherin recently, I was not expecting to find any more funny-sad films that I liked more than those. But Panahi takes the cake with this one!
There was something about the authenticity of this family that really got to me. The dynamics of having an older and younger kid, the way parents put on faces for their young ones to instill hope, the father and son having a very normal sounding conversation (in other words, it doesn’t sound scripted), the mother hoping against all hope that her children will have a fair shot at being their true selves in life, the wild kid who is both annoying and endearing and sort of holds everyone together. It just all works for me. It just felt very real, which sounds cliche but it’s true.
Madjooni as the father and Sarlak as the younger son are both fantasistic. Sarlak brings an innocent yet aware energy that really keeps the film going. The father’s stoic stare is handled with ease by Ma’juni, showing us just enough to know there’s a big heart behind those eyes. Simiar is probably the weakest, but I found him to be very believable in his role, nonetheless. Panahiha as the mom, however, is THE performance of this film. The scene where she breathes and moves with the trees, where she gives a sudden “don’t go!” to her son, that ending karaoke scene. Good grief, this woman broke my heart. She made me wish I had half the courage and selflessness as a parent that she does. She made me long for true hope for her family. I just absolutely loved it.
I wanted to close out with another scene that I adored. It’s where the dad is laying with the younger brother on top of him star gazing. As they have a silly conversation about Batman’s car, you see the mom staring at the star beside them, tears in her eyes and the father and son laugh away. As they continue to laugh and talk, the camera looks down on them and stars begin to appear in the grass all around them until they themselves have become a star in the sky, father and sun with arms and leg spread out, and they disappear into the night sky. There is so much that is amazing about this. It shows the contrast of the sadness the family feels and the laughter that they create to cope with their circumstances. It shows the transcendence of a silly, mundane conversation between father and son, moments that mean nothing and everything at the same time. It signifies a selfless act of desperate hope that places their love amongst the stars. It’s just a beautiful, weird, transcendent, infinitely meaningful sequence that is the stuff movies are made for.
I absolutely loved this film and can’t wait to see more from Panahi in the future. I only hope that he is able to persevere in his creative endeavors like his father.
