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Deserted Station

2002, Movie, NR, 88 mins

Deserted Station: Review

DESERTED STATION | ISTGAH-MATROUK
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As the west's trendy enthusiasm for post-Revolutionary Iranian cinema appears to be on the wane, it's comforting to find that at least some of Iran's best films are still making their way into U.S. theaters. Written by Kambuzia Partrovi, the screenwriter behind Jafar Panahi's masterful DAYEREH (THE CIRCLE) (2000), and directed by Kambuzia Partovi, this deeply humanistic drama is strongly reminiscent of the earlier, less self-referential films of Abbas Kiarostami. And for good reason: Kiarostami helped conceive the original story on which Partrovi based his screenplay. Mahmood (Nezam Manouchehri), a photographer from Tehran, and his beautiful wife (LEILA's Leila Hatami), are traveling through the desert countryside en route to the city of Mashad. Mahmood stops to photograph the striking landscape and its ancient villages, but the primary purpose of this pilgrimage is to consult an imam in hopes that his blessing will help them conceive what they so desperately desire: a child. When a deer suddenly appears out of nowhere on the desolate, uncharted road they'd been traveling, Mahmood slams on the breaks and their Chevy Blazer conks out completely. Leaving his wife alone in the car, Mahmood walks to the nearest town, a tiny village inhabited by old women and very young children; the parents, he's told, have left to work as laborers in other cities. Mahmood also learns that the nearest garage is at least 30 km away, but Feizollah (Mehran Rajabi), the village schoolteacher who's had lots of experience fixing broken-down trucks and cars, volunteers his services. Figuring it'll take at least a day to fix, Feizollah makes a suggestion: Could Mahmood's wife take over his teaching duties so he won't have to close the school? Concerned that her parents will worry if they're late to their destination, she reluctantly agrees, only to discover that what's she's been so desperately searching for might be right here among these virtually abandoned children. Like so much of Kiarostami's best work, Partovi's film begins with a fairly simple, ostensibly unpromising situation, inspired it turns out by a trip the two filmmakers once took together. Like the journey undertaken in LIFE AND NOTHING BUT, or the city slicker's desert interlude in THE WIND WILL CARRY US, these simple situations have a way of gradually attaining extraordinary depth of feeling and subtle grandeur. It never fails to come as a shock to find how profoundly moving it all is when these gentle films draw to their graceful conclusions. leave a comment --Ken Fox
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