Synopsis
A bleak vision in a bleak
environment, It's Winter gets determinedly bleaker like the onset of
the cruellest season. An Iranian filmmaker who trained in London,
Rafi Pitts tells a story of the barrenness of trying to scrape
together an existence in an unforgiving modern world. Set in Tehran
among an impoverished underclass, it examines lives of two men which
overlap in a fatalistic way that is reminiscent of the themes of
Abel Ferrara (about whom Pitts once made a documentary): when things
are really crap, they will generally get much worse. When the road
ahead is unwelcoming and the snow is freezing, what else do you do
but hunker down in your collar? Imagine trying to philosophise with
someone in such a situation - their bottom line is not what your
ideas are but whether or not you can put bread in their mouth.
Mokhtar, unable to find work, leaves
his wife and child to find employment in more distant lands. After
seeing him onto a train we pick up with another man, Marhab, at the
end of his journey. The dislocation is such that it takes a while to
realise that Marhab has arrived in the same area that Mokhtar has
just left. Marhab is also struggling to find and keep work, but
still manages to get married in a short space of time - to Mokhtar's
wife (whose former husband is believed dead)
Whatever joy there is in these
people's lives is consigned almost to a footnote. We are not given
the excuse to believe they are really ok because they can enjoy the
odd cup of soup. Such a false projection of happiness would let us
off the hook too easily. The reality for such people in modern day
Iran is all too realistically portrayed. An ingenious and very
nihilistic coda rams home the message that there is little to look
forward to - even less than hope might suggest.
Format: DVD
Runtime:
86 minutes Type:
Drama / Family Language: In Farsi with English
subtitles. 2006
Picture quality:
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