ALLAN HUNTER at the Movies

CINEMA PROVIDES us with a window on the world. It allows us to gain a sense of cultures we may never visit or experience.

That has certainly been the case with Iranian cinema in recent years. Now, ‘It’s Winter’ (12A) from Rafi Pitts uses a very human story to paint a plaintive picture of a society in which the struggle to survive takes precedence over everything else.

Shot in an industrial suburb south of Teheran, the film tells the story of Mokhtar (Hashem Abdi), a middle-aged man who leaves his wife and daughter to search for work abroad. He boards a belching train in the driving snow, and to his family it is as if he has been wiped from the face of the planet.

Marhab (Ali Nicksolat) arrives from the north seeking work as a mechanic. He is cocky and boastful, taking a shine to the abandoned wife Khatoun (Mitra Hadjar), and pursuing her like a stalker.

Mokhtar is assumed dead, leaving the possibility open to a relationship between Marhab and Khatoun that begins to run along familiar lines.

‘It’s Winter’ is a film with all the simplicity and heartbreak of a neo-realist Italian classic. There are images as bleak and desolate as anything by photographer Diane Arbus.

It is also a critical film, depicting a society in which men fail to take responsibility for their actions and women are always left to pick up the pieces of broken families.

However, it is not a film without hope as, against all the odds, it ends on a positive note with the suggestion that people can change and that life sometimes provides second chances. A lyrical, haunting drama.

Selected nationwide release
© Allan Hunter, 2006

Director: Rafi Pitts
Stars: Mitra Hadjar, Ali Nicksolat, Saeed Orkani, Hashem Abdi, Zahra Jafari
Screenwriter: Rafi Pitts
Certificate: 12A
Running time: 81 mins
Country: Iran
Year: 2006