Chaharshanbe-soori (original title)
25 out of 28 people found the following review useful:
Beautiful.....
Author: mavisheh from United States
10 October 2006
Chaharshanbeh Soori is a beautiful movie, directed with so much subtlety and refinement, bringing the best of the actors out of them. The superb narratives and very good filming are topped with great story telling, making it a must-see and a fresh blood in the Iranian cinema.
The complication of human behavior and psyche as well as the flow of the events, thoughts, and emotions, remind one of Milan Kundera's novels.
The character development is really flawless, and I have never seen Hedyeh Tehrani in a better and more touching scene than the one where she is in the bathroom with her sister in Fireworks Wednesday.
Great job and congratulations to Asghar Farhadi and Mani Haghighi.
19 out of 20 people found the following review useful:
Truth, Love, Deception examined in this fireworks of a movie
Author: corrosion-2 from United Arab Emirates
19 May 2007
It's the last Wednesday of the Iranian new year and in the old Persian tradition kids and adults alike take to fireworks in the streets. Meanwhile in a block of apartments all forms of human emotions are on display. Mojdeh suspects that her husband is having an affair with the hairdresser in the flat next door. She feels cheated and isolated and on the eve of their departure to another country, she is having a total breakdown. A young girl who, on the eve of her marriage, has come to earn some money by house cleaning in Mojde's flat, becomes a pawn in a game of love and hate, truth and deception between all the involved parties.
Chaharshanbe-soori is destined to be known as another turning point in the history of Iranian cinema. Seldom have such adult themes been treated with such depth and by acting of a quality rarely seen in Iranian movies. All the main actors here are simply magnificent. Hedyeh Tehrani has never been better. Direction, script, camera work and editing are all world class. Chaharshanbe-soori nabbed four "Iranian Oscar" awards for best director, actress, editing and audience award; as well winning the best film prize at Chicago International Film festival and Tribeca Film Festival. It's one of those movies that crawls under your skin and stays in the memory long after the movie is over.
10 out of 10 people found the following review useful:
a story of human being
Author: arya_zangi
10 April 2009
One of the best Iranian movies ever! chaharshanbe-soori is about love,family and truth.Mojde,a housewife,suspects his husband of having affair with a woman next door.A young girl who is going to get married comes to their home for cleaning and gets involved in their problem.Like people who are watching the movie,she thinks the husband is innocent and helps him to win the fight against his wife.All these events, take place in chaharshanbe-soori,an old Iranian ceremony.Movie has got excellent acting,Hedie Tehrani is unforgettable,and excellent directing by Asghar Farhadi.One of those movies that stick in your mind for ever!
9 out of 10 people found the following review useful:
bang bang
Author: Martin Teller from Portland OR
7 June 2011
A wide-eyed bride-to-be gets a temp job as a housemaid, and finds herself in the middle of an explosive situation, and not just from the fireworks celebration of the New Year. Yet another fantastic movie from Iran, brimming with intense yet somehow understated family drama... something like Cassavetes, perhaps. The performances are all really good, especially Hedye Tehrani as the jealous wife (to continue the Cassavetes comparison, she's got kind of a Gena Rowlands thing going on). Although the commentary on gender roles will have more meaning to an Iranian audience, there is a universality to the situation and the interactions. These could easily be American characters, in an American city. Using the noise of the fireworks to punctuate the drama, however, is a little too obvious.
3 out of 3 people found the following review useful:
Asghar Farhadi's Underrated Masterpiece.
Author: CinemaClown
8 October 2013
Another gem of a portrayal of Iran's urban middle & lower classes from the master filmmaker behind cinematic jewels like A Separation & About Elly, Fireworks Wednesday is as effective & impressive a domestic drama as Asghar Farhadi's later features and, in my opinion, remains his underrated masterpiece that can really use a broader audience.
Featuring a gripping plot that gets better as the story progresses, tightly structured screenplay, captivating performances from its cast & tight editing, the best thing about Fireworks Wednesday is the manner in which Farhadi has interwoven the whole film in layers which keeps challenging ours as well as its characters' assumptions throughout its runtime & eventually results in an emotionally draining experience.
Covering themes of lies, deception, marriage & infidelity from the eyes of an engaged young woman who's about to step into matrimony, while also keeping its narration perfectly stable by finding a fine balance between its suspense, mystery & drama, Fireworks Wednesday is a faith- shattering cinema that's powerful enough to rank amongst world cinema's finest films and is thoroughly recommended to all film lovers.
This film by Iranian director Asghar Farhadi (A Separation, About Elly) is well made, though in my opinion he has done better. There are elements in this movie you see in other films of the director: heated marital discussions, secrets and lies coming to the light, cultural differences between the middle class and the working class. However, the end result is not as compelling as in other of his movies.
The action transpires on a single day in Tehran during the celebration of the Iranian new year (a holiday where a lot of fireworks are thrown). The young Rouhi (played by the pretty and talented Taraneeh Alidosti, who was in About Elly), is a working class woman that will soon marry her boyfriend. She gets a temporary job cleaning a apartment in a middle class neighborhood. Upon arriving at the apartment she finds herself in the middle of a heated domestic dispute between Mojdeh and Morteza. Mojdeh (Heyde Tehrani, who's great) suspects that her husband Morteza is cheating on her with the next door neighbor Simin, a woman who set up a beauty salon there after her own marriage broke up. Over the course of the day, Rouhi, the fighting couple, their small son, the wife's sister and husband, and the beautician engage in a series of exchanges and confrontations, as the truth unfolds.
Of course, the central conceit of the film, that the residents of the apartment complex would trust this cleaning lady they barely know so much they would confide to her all their problems, is absurd. At one point, Mojdeh even asks Rouhi to pick her young son at school (she has only known her for a few hours, and already trusts her to fetch her son, whom Rouhi has never met!)
Not knowing much about Iranian culture, I was intrigued by the relationship between Rouhi and her boyfriend. I suppose Iran being a culturally conservative country their relationship before marriage is non sexual, yet they seem so close and loving, especially at the opening scenes of the movie. But the movie doesn't dwell too much in this, a pity since you don't see much about young love in Iranian movies.
4 out of 45 people found the following review useful:
Awful, couldn't be worse
Author: m-mirehei from Iran
13 July 2007
*** This review may contain spoilers ***
If we have two or three of such movies per year, that will be more than enough for our society to break down. One of the best Iranian traditions, Chaharshanbe-soori, has been shown like a dangerous street riot throughout the film and the sound of explosions is heard in all scenes. Is this really all we have in "Chaharshanbe-soori"? The house cleaner "Roohi" does nothing but eavesdropping, lying and interfering in Mojde's private life and goes happy with her fiancé at the end with no punishment for her behavior. The worst part is that the hairdresser "Simin" who is the cause of this entire scenario (beside Morteza of course) appears as an angle requesting an end to her affair with Morteza because Mojde is under intense pressure due to their relationship (as she says)!!!! So real!!! If this angel really has a heart like this why has she started this affair not thinking about Mojde but her little son who may lose either his father or mother as a result of her joy (mentioning that Simin herself has a son who is experiencing a different life because of separation of his parents). While the only positive point of the movie is that apology that Morteza gives to her wife because of his behavior in the street, Morteza believes that he has the right to cheat on his wife because she is a terrible housewife (Morteza: go and ask neighbors to see when has been the last time that they have smelled food from our home?); as no where in the movie this idea is denied, it seems to be the final belief delivered to the viewer, but is this really the solution???...
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0845439/reviews
No comments:
Post a Comment