Third film by Swedish-Dano-Iranian Ali Abbasi, Nights of Mashhad deals with a serial-killer case in Iran, at the crossroads of religion and politics. If the film has a detective plot, the investigation is led by a pugnacious journalist who won Zar Amir Ebrahimi the prize for female interpretation at the last Cannes Film Festival. With, at the heart of its subject, the place of women in Iran, it is a gripping and militant thriller.
Rahimi, a journalist with a major Tehran daily, arrives in the Iranian holy city of Mashhad to investigate a series of murders of prostituted women from the city’s seedy suburbs. She is quickly convinced that the local religious authorities are not zealous to arrest the assassin who, in their eyes, is purifying the city of depraved women. The assassin, a fundamentalist veteran of the war against Iraq, claims divine justice, of which he would be the armed arm to purify the holy city of its sins.
Inspired by real events that occurred in Iran in 2001, Nights of Mashhad has all the qualities of a thriller, which the director had already demonstrated in his strange Border in 2018. Expatriated to Sweden, the filmmaker, of Iranian origin, uses a news item which saw the assassination of sixteen prostitutes to denounce the power of the mullahs who prefer to see drugged prostitutes assassinated rather than establish a socio-health policy.
One of the strengths of Nights of Mashhad is to reveal to the spectator from the beginning the identity of the murderer and his modus operandi. Ali Abbasi constructs a parallel montage of the tidy life of his assassin and the investigation led by a journalist, whose pugnacity is countered by the police and religious authorities. Her status as a woman serves her badly, but her strong personality puts all those who oppose this preventer of going around in circles in their place.
Filmed as close as possible to reality, the story is gripping from start to finish, with a remarkable interpretation by Zar Amir Ebrahimi as a combative journalist. The film is unlikely to be distributed in Iran but it once again convinces of the talent of Iranian filmmakers.
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Gender : Policeman
Director: Ali Abbasi
Actors: Zar Amir Ebrahimi, Mehdi Bajestani, Arash Ashtiani
Country : France / Denmark / Sweden / Germany
Duration : 1h56
Exit : July 13, 2022
Distributer : Metropolitan FilmExport
Summary: Iran 2001, a journalist from Tehran dives into the most disreputable suburbs of the holy city of Mashhad to investigate a series of feminicides. She will quickly realize that the local authorities are in no hurry to see the case resolved. These crimes would be the work of a single man, who claims to purify the city of its sins, by attacking prostitutes at night.