Talaye sorkh (Crimson Gold)

I saw the trailer for this in theaters a few years ago and thought it looked terrible. The opening, in which a thief shoots the proprietor and then himself in a hold-up gone bad, is by turns humorous and horrifying. The viewer is finally shut in in with the unfortunate thief and owner when the cage door accidentally closes and locks shut. An audience of passers-by gathers outside as the situatiion within grows more and more desperate. The rest of the movie is an attempt to show how such desperation could arise by following a driver as he delivers food to various upscale locales throughout Tehran.

In a role that is apparently taken straight from his life, Hossain Emadeddin's hulking presence dominates almost every frame. Early on in the movie he reveals to his friend Ali the frustration he hides underneath his pained silence, and for the rest of the movie he remains laconic to a degree that throws off everone around him. When he drives his fiancee back home his smoldering anger leaves her confused and silenced on her doorstep, but when a customer later invites him into his luxury house and proceeds to talk to his girlfriend on the phone, Hossein wanders around the mansion drinking wine from a bottle in the kind of bacchanalian revelry he has hitherto witnessed only from the outside looking in. Is this what's supposed to set him off? There's not much in the way of plot, and even the tension raised early in the film seems to evaporate on a Vespa tour that at times seemed like a weird cross between 'La Dolce Vita' and 'The Trial.'

The current plight of women in Iran is everywhere in evidence, hidden under scarves by day, bullied by police on the streets at night. Their purses are snatched and their needs mocked by men who never seem to know what to do if they can't control them.
There are a number of scenes of dark humor, such as the policeman who asks a man coming out of an apartment building, "What kind of man goes out with his wife?" Or when a young woman plaintively asks Hussein if the reason for his anger is the fact that she raised her head scarf to show him a necklace. All well-aimed barbs at the mullahs ruling the theocratic state, which is probably why Panahi reportedly had to stay one step ahead of the police while making the movie. Uneven over the entire span, there are nevertheless some excellent moments throughout, and certainly offers a fascinating and pointed look at life in contemporary Iran.