Evil Dead Rise [dir. Lee Cronin]

Among successful horror franchises, the Evil Dead (ED) series has largely avoided the phenomenon of being 'sequelized' to death. Yes, there have been offshoots. Sam Raimi, who put together the 1981 film (with his close collaborators Bruce Campbell and Bob Tapert), helmed two increasingly ambitious sequels in 1987 (Evil Dead II) and 1992 (Army of Darkness), that successively shifted the tone from pure horror to macabre comedy to comic-book hero adventure territory. In 2013, debutante feature film-maker Fede Alvarez was handed the reins for a reboot of the original, which did well at the box-office and was appreciated for its unpretentious ferocity. In 2015, a cable television series called Ash vs Evil Dead was launched, starring ED series regular Campbell, which has till date run into 3 seasons. Now in 2023, another relative newcomer Lee Cronin has been chosen to craft a new feature entry, Evil Dead Rise (EDR).

So it's not as though the creators have let the IP stagnate, but considering the gargantuan number of sequel features and adjunct material generated by rival horror franchises like Halloween, Friday the 13th, Hellraiser etc, Raimi and Co have been rather choosy about who they let handle their baby. It is a restraint that has worked in their favor. Their more prolific rival series have invariably had installments so wretched even the rabid fans find hard to justify, but everything released thus far in the ED franchise has enjoyed at least a basal level of popularity among 'Deadites'. There is talk of opening up the franchise for more frequent exploitation, so the future may be different, but we will not concern ourselves with that now.

EDR is not directly connected with the previous films in the franchise, and is more of a soft reboot in a different setting. The film sets up a misleading prologue with the 'Cabin in the Woods' location that has been the basis of all ED movies thus far (cannily satirized in the 2015 film of that name). But after a taster of the scares, we are taken 'One day earlier' to downtown LA, inside a rundown apartment building which is going to be taken down soon. Among the residents is Ellie (Alyssa Sutherland), single-handedly nurturing 3 kids after her husband abandoned her. Ellie is visited by her sister Beth (Lily Sullivan), with whom she has a troubled relationship. Beth is a roadie (Ellie insists on calling her a groupie) trying to cope with the recent fact that she is pregnant. Shortly after the sisters meet, there is an earthquake and the basement area opens up to reveal a hitherto walled in chamber with a strange book and a set of records. ED fans will know exactly how things proceed from here.

Yep, this is the famed Necronomicon aka Book of the Dead. Of course one of Ellie's teens has to open up the book and play the record* with the chants that call in demons from another dimension, and (ha!) all hell breaks loose. Let me say this straight out, there is no originality to EDR. Almost everything you see here, you have seen in previous horror films, often better ones. That said, like with Fede Alvarez's 2013 reboot , there is a lot of energy. Even in the possibly censored theatrical release, the movie features a fair amount of gore - including a scalping, an eye-gouging and swallowing of broken glass - and blood flows literally in gallons; a later scene where an elevator fills with the red stuff is a winking nod to The Shining.

Eschewing the overt comic elements the Raimi-Campbell sequels incorporated, the tone is more straight horror like the first ED film (and the 2013 reboot). Sutherland makes a good meal of Ellie, clearly relishing the evil of her possessed avatar. EDR makes things mildly uncomfortable when threatening or bringing harm to children, but it does so without being exploitative. Within the constrained location, director Lee Cronin echoes the isolation of the "Cabin in the Woods" - the action is set entirely within the apartment building, most of it on a single floor with a broken inaccessible staircase and a dangerously unreliable elevator. Especially in the scenes where demon Ellie gorily dispatches multiple rescue attempts (including one that leaves behind a series trademark boomstick to be picked up later), the movie effectively builds pressure.

I am a little loath to comment on the intensity of EDR's scares unless I know I am watching an uncensored Director's Cut. That said, the aforementioned elevator sequence apart, this film didn't really have me squirming. It's not outrageously imaginative like the Raimi original, and its creature designs and set-pieces are derivative of previous films without meaningfully expanding on them. To EDR's credit, it runs a brisk pace (97min), relies mainly on pleasing old-skool make-up and practical FX for the scares, and does not detour (apart from that prologue that gets an "Eh, whatever" resolution at the end). It is decent bloodcorn entertainment, if also eminently forgettable.

* Trivia - Bruce Campbell makes an audio cameo in one of the recordings played during the film.

Un-kvlt Vlog 8 - Ramsay Horror Special - Aatma

The last Vlog episode I did on the Ramsay movies included in Mondo Macabro's Bollywood Horror blu-ray boxset was several months ago. I have no excuse for this huge gap, I was just being a lazy bum. Anyway, a short while ago I saw that people had started receiving their copies of this monstrous set. I felt I should get off my ass and finish with the last entry in this series - Aatma aka Spirit (2006), directed by Deepak Ramsay. Like always, those that prefer to read than watch, the full transcript is available below the video:

I must confess here that I have a special fondness for Aatma. It was the first Ramsay horror feature which I saw in a cinema. When their classic titles like Purana Mandir, Veerana and Bandh Darwaza were being screened in movie halls, I was still a schoolkid and obviously could not go for these Adults Only rated films. Also, the 80's were the age of VHS, and my household was one among many middle class Indian households that did most of their movie-watching at home. Before Aatma, I had seen other horror films in cinemas, including Hollywood films and also some by other Indian horror film-makers like Ram Gopal Varma, but I was still a virgin to Ramsay-style horror on the big screen.

So when in 2006, a new Ramsay horror feature was released, I felt obliged to experience it in a movie theater. Interestingly enough, the Ramsays had previously retreated from big-screen movie-making for some time. 1994's Mahakaal (an unauthorized "re-imagining" of Nightmare on Elm Street) had been the last previous theatrical horror feature from the Ramsay production house. The Indian horror film market by then was in a bad shape, with a glut of zero-budget zero-talent films killing audience interest in the genre.

Ironically this return to big-screen horror was very likely inspired by their foray into television programming. During the early 90's satellite TV boom, the Ramsays produced an anthology series called The Zee Horror Show. Household TV sets across the country blared the iconic Ramsay theme tune which had been recycled for the series, and home audiences were both terrified of and delighted by the show. The series had an 8-year run from 1993-2001, probably one of the longest running on Indian television.

Deepak Ramsay, who had previously assisted his father Tulsi Ramsay and uncle Shyam on some of their classic horror films, 'made his bones' on the show, directing the majority of the episodes. It is likely that the experience he gained on this show and the long-running success it enjoyed, planted the idea in Deepak's head of reviving the Ramsay Horror banner for the big screen. In fact, several people have likened Aatma to an extended episode of The Zee Horror Show.

Which is not a bad thing, per se. It reminds me more of the horror and suspense films the Ramsays made for a decade before they hit upon Purana Mandir's monster formula. I quite like this phase of the Ramsays, when they were experimenting with a bunch of different narratives, making for some variety in the telling. There is a strong element of EC Comics style "revenge from beyond the grave" here.

In the story, a young doctor (Kapil Jhaveri) is visited in the dead of night by a strangely pale bloke that tells him about an autopsy he will do the next day. He warns the doc to make an honest job of it or suffer horrific consequences. Imagine the doc's surprise when he finds the same bloke laid out as a corpse on the morgue table. But our doc has a problem - the dead man's relatives have compelled him to pass the murder off as a natural death, by threatening to kill his beautiful wife (Neha / Shabana Raza). Having succumbed to their blackmail, he has to deal with the curse of the dead man's spirit, which is also determined to avenge itself on the murderers. Whether the spirit is successful in its quest for vengeance and whether our doc is able to obtain release from its oppression forms the rest of the narrative.

The influence of the Ramsays' TV stint is certainly reflected in Aatma, but I think mostly to the film's benefit. Moving away from the trademark haunted palace and dungeon locations of their previous films, Aatma is entrenched in a contemporary urban setting. Within the crisp 107 min running time, there is a compact narrative-focused structure, and a lesser number of breaks for songs and odious comedy. I appreciated the moral ambiguity - the doc dishonors his profession and pisses off the dead man's spirit by his perfidy, but he does it for the safety of his family. Our sympathies are thereby divided between the doc and the wronged spirit. As the murderous villains, Bollywood character actors Sadashiv Amrapurkar and Mukesh Tiwari ham it up in style, and Laila Patel as the vamp oozes mucho oomph factor. Deepak sets up some solid revenge kills for the spirit - my favorite is when an unearthly high-pitched scream literally splits open Amrapurkar's head (a possible hat tip to Scanners).

Visually, Aatma is a mixed bag. It is colorful, but lit in a flat full-bright fashion and relies on blue filters for night-time scenes; a look more suited to TV. Camera wizard Gangu Ramsay does bring out his trademark odd angles, and I like some of the modern touches, like the surveillance cameras monitoring the spirit's activity. It's not high art by any means, but it is pleasing Bollywood style horror entertainment. Going by the screenshots I have seen, Aatma's look seems to be nicely replicated in the Mondo blu-ray. It certainly promises to be a huge upgrade over my current VCD copy and I can't wait to visit this late era Ramsay horror in proper high-definition.

Other Vlogs in this series:

Bandh Darwaza Vlog 

Purani Haveli Vlog 

Tahkhana Vlog 

Purana Mandir Vlog

Veerana Vlog

My 20th Century [dir. Ildiko Enyedi]

At 2017's MAMI film festival, I saw Ildiko Enyedi's On Body and Soul, an engrossing narrative in which two individuals see each other as animals in a common Gaia dream world. The concept was lucidly unfolded in the narrative and the film ended upon a wonderful pivot, which left me wondering about the possible future for the characters. In my limited viewing window of that year's fest, it was one of the best experiences, eclipsing more name ventures like Hirokazu Kore-eda's underwhelming The Third Murder and Luca Guadagnino's overrated festival darling Call Me By Your Name.

Her first feature film, 1989's My 20th Century, which I just watched on the UK blu-ray, is less successful for me in terms of narrative flow and clarity of vision. It begins promisingly, taking us to the time when Thomas Edison had pioneered the electric bulb, bringing the light of the stars within the grasp of human beings. In a conceit that doesn't work for me at all, the stars function as a sort of Greek chorus commenting on and even calling out to the characters in the film. But right from the first frame the film has style in spades. Shooting in B&W, Enyedi uses several visual tricks associated with the silent film era. Remember, this was before Guy Maddin became famous for movies that paid homage to the years of vintage cinema.

Our first view of the main characters is when we see a woman (Dorotha Segda) delivering twin babies. There is a vein of humor in how this is depicted though; after her labor pains, she appears to discover the babies already swaddled in bedclothes just lying beside her. The twins are orphaned early and take to selling matches to survive (nod to Hans Christen Andersen's The Little Match Girl, which incidentally had been adapted several times in cinema's early days). They come across a young donkey who could be a spiritual cousin of the famous Balthazar from Robert Bresson's film. Later on, when lying asleep on the street, they are each picked up by a gentleman and carried to a different fate.

As adults, the daughters are also played by Dorotha Segda. They could be regarded as the two halves of a Freudian split. Dora is a calculative seductress and con artist, looking for men that will furnish her with luxuries in return for a good time. Lily is a naive emotionally rooted revolutionary, willing to die for the cause. In an early sequence, they are both aboard the Orient Express. Of course they don't meet here - Lily is huddled with the other third class passengers, while Dora is courted by well-heeled suitors in the deluxe dining car. But there is a moment when a tipsy Dora has a brief glimpse of Lily boarding the train; this precedes a similar scene in Krzysztof Kieslowski's The Double Life of Veronique.

For the longest time in the narrative our connection with Lily and Dora is through Z (Russian actor Oleg Yankovsky). Z is a gentleman of somewhat ambiguous standing. He is first taken up with Lily and makes aggressive overtures, for which he is roundly rebuffed. Later, on a luxury cruise, Z comes across Dora who he assumes to be Lily. Naturally, he is puzzled by her new persona. She in turn picks Z as a likely mark and propositions him for some cavorting; she even pinches money from his wallet. At a later point when Z meets Lily again, his behavior towards her is sneering, reflective of his judgement of her as a duplicitous whore.

The film even appears to make a smirking comment on this duality when we accompany Lily to a lecture by a self-important male philosopher. This speaker is at first hailed by the all-woman audience for endorsing the suffragette cause, but he soon dispels their enthusiasm by loudly repudiating the assumptions of intellectual equality between men and women. According to him, women are incapable of pure logic and philosophic purpose, their lives driven by feelings and physical desires. Academic Jonathan Owen, who contributes an essay on the film for the Second Run release, cleverly contrasts this declamation with the characters of Lily and Dora: Lily, who has aimed to live by a (revolutionary) doctrine appears to be questioning her own position (and we later see her softening her stance to Z). Dora on the other hand lives a life based on pure (selfish) logic, which probably places her higher as a philosophic creature in this man's estimation.

After some near-explosive events (a scene where Lily runs around with a lighted bomb brought to mind a similar moment from the Adam West Batman movie) the film returns to surreal territory when our lead characters run into a literal Hall of Mirrors; Balthazar's cousin re-appears here, not looking any worse for the 20 year gap, as does Edison.

I found myself heartily nodding to The Disapproving Swede's evaluation of the film as "too whimsical and literally all over the place". It's got some cracking moments, visual and thematic, and Dorotha Segda bats fine on all fronts with her triple role. But the kitchen sink approach led me to lose the emotional connection with the characters. In the end, it became more of an elaborate puppet show where the puppeteer's hands are all too apparent.

A few words about the Second Run blu-ray:

At the time of release (2017), this blu-ray proudly advertised its transfer as a "2K restoration from original materials, under the supervision of director Ildikó Enyedi and cinematographer Tibor Máthé". In general, it's a good transfer and the B&W imagery is often strikingly good, but there are also elements of film damage (I do not know if some of them are an intentional homage to silent era celluloid), grain resolution is less optimal than desired and the grayscale is compromised on account of what seems like black crush. The audio is Hungarian mono in lossless format, and sounds fine enough. Extras include a  more recent half hour interview with Ildiko Enyedi by Peter Strickland (Berberian Sound Studio, Duke of Burgundy) and the afore-mentioned booklet essay.

 In 2020, Kino Lorber put out their blu-ray, which was based on a newer 4K master. In screenshot comparisons the Kino release is easily the winner - it has a much better balanced contrast/grayscale range and grain is finer. It includes all the on-disc extras of the SR disc and throws in a director's commentary. So if you can play North American (region A) discs, this is definitely the better option. As I am unlikely to visit the film again, I shall not be upgrading.

Ariyippu aka Declaration [dir. Mahesh Narayanan]

The opening scenes of Ariyippu (Declaration) convey both its setting and its rhythm. Inside a factory for making surgical gloves, the machinery rattles and hums as a row of mannequin hands, naked or gloved, rotate while ferried on a conveyor. Sometimes they seem to point and sometimes they seem to be held out in desperate supplication. Maker Mahesh Narayanan is primarily an editor - one of the best in  modern Malayalam cinema - and in an un-showy way, the splicing of the visuals of this grim industrial reality generates a kind of beauty, a kind of poetry.

Narayanan's C U Soon (2020) was shot during the Covid-19 lockdown situation in India. Ariyippu went into production towards the end of 2021 after the lockdown was withdrawn, but the narrative is set in a time when the country was still under active curfew. Both the structure and the visual aesthetic of the film draw from this traumatic situation. Malayali couple Hareesh (Kunchako Boban) and Reshmi (Divya Prabha) work at the glove-making unit situated in Noida, Uttar Pradesh. In a time when most other businesses are shuttered, this plant struggles to meet demand. The working hours are hard and long, and the factory has strict rules: Reshmi is ticked off for wearing a (wedding) ring in the glove testing department, while Hareesh must deal with an increased burden of loading goods amidst a worker shortage. Our couple are far from home and, apart from the companionship of some fellow migrant workers, isolated in a cultural milieu that is both foreign and apathetic to their needs. The lockdown protocol of masks and social distancing only adds to their alienation.

They are looking to make the jump to another country where their skillset can earn them a better living. It is in this regard that at the beginning of the film Hareesh films footage of Reshmi working at her station. This is of course forbidden in the rules; employees are not normally permitted even to carry phones onto the floor. With a promise to not leak it elsewhere, he hands the footage to the agent paid to arrange for their migration and employment abroad. Naturally, it does leak, finding its way into the workforce Whatsapp group. Worse, it is appended with footage of a woman in face mask performing a sexual service in the premises.

The resulting scandal produces different reactions in the couple. A distraught Reshmi wants to quit and head homewards to Kerala. Hareesh insists on taking the matter to the police. But there again, it is Reshmi who must bear the brunt of an investigation that only embarrasses her further. In the meanwhile, Hareesh starts to have his doubts about the masked woman. Could it be Reshmi? There is also a pivotal sub-plot concerning malpractice and violation of standards in the company, and both of them get caught up in this by different routes.

The primary focus of Ariyippu is in the relationship of the lead couple. When Hareesh insists on proving Reshmi's innocence in the MMS scandal through a police investigation, he initially appears a loyal husband  striving to restore his wife's honor, while she is full of trepidation. But later we see Hareesh closely examining the added footage, trying to make out if the woman is Reshmi or someone else. His 'bravery' in pursuing the investigation can then be interpreted as not purely an expression of his  trust in his wife but of a male ego bruised by the possibility of his wife straying. This is underlined in the scene where he forces himself upon Reshmi in their cramped bedroom even as a friend staying over to comfort her is sleeping beside. His temper issues, signaled early in the film when he has an altercation with a driver that refuses to help with the loading, lead to bigger problems afterwards.

Reshmi's actions can be similarly re-evaluated. She is scared and unwilling to file a complaint because she knows the process will only add to her hurt and humiliation without really giving her justice. She is proven right, when after sending her for a medical exam (What for, exactly? She is a married woman and the MMS shows a consensual act), the police officer tells them to reach an 'understanding' with the agent regarding the leaked footage. Later, her own husband questions her movements for that day. It is when the actual mystery of the footage is revealed that she decides 'Enough is Enough', and stands up backs against wall to lodge her protest against the systemic patriarchal and class-based abuse that is abetted by even the so-called decent men in the name of maintaining respectability and status quo. The tone is not shrill here. Reshmi does not become a torch-bearing avenger, and there is no raucous showdown. But in following the dictates of her own mind, she stands up for herself and for the other women destroyed or suppressed by that toxic hierarchy.

In this unvarnished yet sensitive slice of life movie experience, I am reminded of the films of Ivan Ayr (Soni, Meel Patthar). Narayanan with his creative collaborators - DoP Sanu John Varghese, co-editor Rahul Radhakrishnan, background score composer Sushin Shyam - gives a unified vision wholly in service of the story and characters. Even the language of the film, a fluid mixture of Malayalam, Hindi and Tamil - is a wonderful reflection of its cosmopolitan setting. As Hareesh, Kunchako Boban (who also co-produced) gives another performance that heralds him as the actor to watch for. In another era, he might have been content to get by on innate charm, but his filmography of the last few years shows someone clearly willing to take creative risks. Hareesh is a gray-shaded character, and neither the writing nor Boban's performance try to sugar-coat it in any way. Divya Prabha, whom I have only seen before in Malik, brilliantly owns Reshmi's character. You can feel her trepidation and preference to conform, gradually give way to anger when her husband suspects her of infidelity and later white-hot fury when she realizes how the entire ecosystem colludes to suppress the voice of victims, just to keep the wheels moving and to retain the prestige of the privileged. Even in the absence of exaggerated verbal fireworks, the audience can empathize with her indignation, which is also the film's anger.

The Banshees of Inisherin [dir. Martin McDonagh]

On a remote island off the Irish coast where the church and the local pub are the sole places of gathering and news travels primarily by way of mouth, the life of simple farmer Pádraic / Patrick (Colin Farrell) is upended when his hitherto constant pub-mate Colm (Brendan Gleeson) tells Farrell in no uncertain terms that he does not wish his fraternity anymore. This is not on account of any quarrel between the men, nay; Basically the older Colm has decided to spend his remaining years making something of his life in creative pursuit, and the company of 'dull' Patrick would only be a waste of precious time.

For good reason, Patrick does not take this well. The only other resorts he has for company are his sister Siobhan (Kerry Condon), his pet miniature donkey Jenny, and occasionally, the village idiot Dominic (Barry Keoghan). Patrick feels betrayed and confused. How could his best friend cut him off that way? But his attempts to break through Colm's hostility are met with even more extreme retaliation, when Colm - a hobbyist fiddler - threatens to cut off one of his (own) fingers for each time Patrick approaches him. As we soon see, it is not an empty threat. The bleak insular nature of the island community creates a pressure-cooker atmosphere, and Patrick's desperation and gullibility to suggestion makes him do the very things that further escalate the situation.

Depending on your viewpoint, The Banshees of Inisherin is either a very bleak comedy or a very funny tragedy. To the credit of writer-director Martin McDonagh, it never stumbles in that ambivalent tone. I admit, I used to regard Colin Farrell as something of a jerk - I could not sit through more than 20 min of In Bruges, and Hollywood's attempts to make an action movie star of him didn't help. But the work he did with Greek director Yorgos Lanthimos made me sit up to the actor, and he proved a real chameleon with his take on the Penguin's character in The Batman. Here he disappears into the simpleton role, exuding a child-like petulance when his friend refuses to acknowledge him anymore, which eventually turns into a dangerous rage.

Brendan Gleeson is equally effective as the man that does not hate Farrell, but cannot stand the idea of wasting any more of life in his company. And fantastic support is provided by Condon and Keoghan (who has worked with Farrell before). The remote Irish isles may be dreary to spend a lifetime in, but they provide a gorgeous untamed backdrop against which the drama is played out. In all, The Banshees of Inisherin is an engrossing feature spun off a simple but effective idea. The numerous awards for which it has been nominated are certainly well-earned.

 

Farzi [Raj & DK]

Couple nights back I finished with the first season of Farzi, the OTT-series on Amazon Prime. In this crime drama, talented artist Sandeep/Sunny (Shahid Kapur) turns small-time counterfeiter, and then gets involved with high-level players. On the flip side, a job-obsessed but deeply flawed and manipulative cop Michael (Vijay Sethupati) heads a special task force (called CCFART, for the lulz, obviously) to bust the fake notes business in the country. Passionate RBI employee Megha (Raashi Khanna) joins this team, and has run-ins with the counterfeiter. On these three linchpins hangs a narrative with multiple turns and an end-of-season showdown.

I had significant expectations from Farzi, as it came from the stable of Raj & DK, the makers of the Family Man series as well as entertaining movies like 99, Shor in the City, A Gentleman etc (For now let's ignore Go Goa Gone and Happy Ending). But the first episode had me seriously wondering if the burden of simultaneously taking on multiple series had severely stretched out the creative juices of these guys. What I like most about their work - across film and OTT - is their ability to mine individual personality quirks and regional subtleties that make their character writing memorable. In contrast, the bulk of Ep 1 was alarmingly generic and lacklustre. Thankfully, the further episodes picked up the slack, and while the best parts of Family Man are superior to anything we see here, this is still a well-made piece of entertainment.

The casting is terrific across the board. Vijay Sethupati in his Hindi debut gives non-Tamilians a taste of his trademark irreverent style - his peppery exchanges with Zakir Hussain's minister character are a joy to behold. And Michael is suited to the actor's ability to deliver layered portrayals. Michael loves his job, but it's more an ego trip for him than the selfless "desh-seva" mantra that Family Man's good guys had. He is also fairly flexible in his principles, using seized fake notes to buy his son a fancy phone or emotionally manipulating his wife to hold off the impending divorce. Like they did for Priyamani and Samantha in Family Man, Raj & DK continue their mission of giving meaningful parts to Telugu movie 'import glamdolls' - this time it's Raashi Khanna and Regina Cassandra, as the counterfeit-hunting RBI employee and Sethupati's estranged spouse respectively. The talented but often typecast Kay Kay Menon is in cracking form as mid-level fake currency operator Mansoor Dalaal - in both the writing and his performance, the character gets a delightful amount of nuance that separates him from the stereotype gangster/bhai.

In comparison to the more colorful cast members Shahid Kapur's 'Artist' is very tamped down. But this is deliberate - Like the protagonist of Johnny Gaddaar, his character is supposed to be one that flies under everyone's radar. He succeeds when underestimated. But there is also the flip side - he is a cocky fool that gets into shitholes by aggrandizing himself as a playah when he is really a 'lukkhaa' surviving by the seat of his pants with no real strategy. The actor bravely embraces the essential amorality of Sunny and delivers exactly what is needed.

Compared to Family Man's several audacious action sequences peppered through the series, this one mainly comes alive in the chase sequence amidst Mumbai traffic in the last episode (there is a fair amount of action before, but that's more competent than exhilarating). But thankfully, unlike FM S01's brutally abrupt ending, this one has a reasonably satisfying series arc while setting up hooks for the next season. I look forward to them upping the ante.

Shatranj-e-Baad aka Chess of the Wind [dir. Mohd Reza Aslani]

Normally we know Iranian cinema for its realistic human dramas with existential questions - the works of Abbas Kiarostami*, Asghar Farhadi, Jafar Panahi etc exemplify this aspect. Or there is Mohsin Makhmalbaf's poetic flights of fancy. But Mohammed Reza Aslani's 1976 film Chess of the Wind - which had been regarded long lost and was only recently rescued from destruction - is an altogether different beast. This is a stylized and provocative crime noir that harks back to the work of Alfred Hitchcock and Henri-Georges Clouzot. And equally interesting that the film is driven primarily by its women characters.

Going by its look and the feudal nature of relationships, I imagine Chess of the Wind is set somewhere in the early 20th century. It is a time of candlelight crystal chandeliers, enormous glass storage urns, powder-loading pistols and wooden wheelchairs. In a wealthy household, the matriarch has recently died. Her middle-aged spinster daughter Aghdas (Fakhri Khorvash) is handicapped and moves about in a wheel chair. Aghdas is yet to come out of mourning, when the stepfather begins a process of domination to control the family estates. There are other men in the house who sympathize with Aghdas, but for their own ends. Her only close companion seems to be the devoted maid and companion (Shohreh Aghdashloo). A plan is made to do away with the stepfather and it is carried out. But how long can the crime stay hidden?  Apart from the people that live in it, the house is a character in itself. Every claustrophobic corner seethes with whispered intrigue as Aghdas becomes increasingly unsure of who she can trust, including her own sanity.

Apart from an examination of this crime and its aftermath, the film is also an exploration of the decadence of the feudal system. Wealth only begets greed and sin. Banned almost immediately after release, for some surprisingly racy content, Aslani's film is also a sensory marvel. Khorvash and Aghdashloo burn up the screen with their multi-level chemistry. The baroque production design (art director Houri Etesan and costume designer Manouchehr Safarzadeh) is chockful of unique period objects, and the camera (Houshang Baharlou) lovingly lingers over the sight of stained glass windows, rich tapestries, chessboards, chandelier bulbs, ornate flails  - Echoes of the object fetishes seen in the films of Robert Bresson or Walerian Borowczyk. And the visuals are not just eye-candy, they define the mood of the film. Towards the end when the narrative reaches a hellish place, the viewer is carried into the lower depths of the house, the visuals draped in an orange-red tint of perdition. Also of note is the terrific avant-garde score (Sheyda Gharachedagi) that generates a sense of nerve-squeezing dread across several sequences.

From a purely narrative point of view, the climax is almost absurd, but like with Dario Argento's Suspiria, the mood generated by the visuals and sounds carries it through brilliantly, making for a memorable experience.

* This site has previously reviewed Kiarostami's films like The Taste of Cherry and Like Someone in Love (Click the titles to read those reviews).