Beguiling if also bewildering, this newly-restored pre-’79 Iranian rarity is ultimately elusive and muddling in its thematic exploration of paranoia, traditions and taboos, as a mysterious wounded man drifts ashore on a boat.
Review #2,729
Dir. Bahram Beyzaie
1974 | Iran | Drama | 140 min | 1.37:1 | Persian
PG13 (passed clean) for some violence
Cast: Parvaneh Massoumi, Khosrow Shojazadeh, Manuchehr Farid
Plot: A young man, suffering from loss of memory, drifts in on a canoe onto the shore of the Persian Gulf. He falls in love with a beautiful village woman and settles down, until strangers come from the sea.
Awards: Official Selection (Toronto)
Source: Cineteca di Bologna / Film Foundation
Accessibility Index
Subject Matter: Moderate – Paranoia, Traditions & Taboos; Closed Community
Narrative Style: Slightly Complex
Pace: Slightly Slow
Audience Type: General Arthouse
Viewed: Oldham Theatre (as part of Singapore International Film Festival)
Spoilers: No
I have an almost unhealthy obsession with Middle Eastern cinema, so when the rare opportunity came to see The Stranger and the Fog, I knew I had to go for it. (Thanks to the Singapore International Film Festival for featuring it, together with programming partner Asian Film Archive, under the new ‘Landmark’ section.)
Newly restored and likely to be made more widely accessible as part of the next World Cinema Project boxset by The Film Foundation in collaboration with The Criterion Collection, this pre-’79 Iranian drama is best described as beguiling if also bewildering.
It’s beguiling because it is oddly charming as a semi-pastoral tale with an ‘islander’ vibe. However, it is convoluted and muddling, and whatever the film is trying to say doesn’t quite come across cogently.
It is an elusive, and frankly, protracted experience of sights and sounds, wonderful, exotic and mystifying they may be.
A mysterious wounded man drifts ashore on a boat and is tended to but also ostracised as an ‘outsider’ by the insular community.
“No one’s coming after you.”
As he becomes deeply entwined in their traditions and taboos, director Bahram Beyazaie (whose earlier 1972 Iranian New Wave classic, Downpour, was restored a few years ago) uses the story to explore the notion of paranoia.
The mystery man appears to be a wanted person—but who’s after him, and where from?
We are somewhere along the Persian Gulf, and the uncertainty—or is it anticipation?—of waiting for something to happen haunts the film. Like a Zulawski film, this is probably what makes The Stranger and the Fog more enigmatically engaging than its immediate premise.
Not surprisingly, the film is quite forward in its portrayal of women’s plight, suggesting some kind of agency as to how they might want to—or would have wanted to—lead their lives, away from dogmatic, patriarchal perspectives.
At once cinematic in its visual style but also theatrical in the performances, it’s unfortunately rather challenging to pin down the true essence of Beyazaie’s work.
Grade: B-
Eternality Tan 