Released in 2021, The tehran law was a spectacular UFO, with a virtuoso staging having nothing to envy to Hollywood, which presented us with an unknown reality of Iran, the scourge of opium addiction.
Saeed Roustaee’s new film is more classic in appearance: a family story almost behind closed doors, that of a young woman and her three brothers who try by various means to leave their modest condition. And their father, a sick and opium-addicted old man, who is waiting to become the godfather of the family, with the privileges that entails.
Do not rely on the length of the film, 2h45, nor on its very talkative side, because there again it is rhythmed like a thriller. “I had the idea for this film before making Tehran Lawand besides, I don’t consider this one at all as a thrillersays Saeed Roustaee. The issue of drugs in my previous film affects certain people, even though there are many of them in Iran. On the other hand in Leila and her brothers, the plot revolves mainly around the consequences of international sanctions which cause galloping inflation, and in particular the monumental rise in the price of gold. And that for once, it affects absolutely all Iranians, rich or poor, so you can’t really describe this story as intimate.”
Here again, the director presents us with a present-day Iran torn between two opposite poles, which mix despite everything. On the one hand the weight of customs and traditions, it is necessary at all costs to preserve appearances and let believe that one has money, and on the other a more modern society, where one exhausts oneself in the rooms fitness, where you can get rich thanks to the internet and new technologies, and where young women defy the prohibitions to smoke alone on terraces despite the gaze of neighbors.
“There is above all the fact that this family, and in this case the youngest, want to change social category. But we don’t let them do it, it’s as if they weren’t authorized to do so, highlighted Saeed Roustaee. They want to find a logical way to rise in the social classes, but the weight of these traditions prevents them from doing so, and adds to the economic and social crisis of the country.
Throughout the film or almost, the protagonists lie, betray each other, scam each other, sometimes in an unforgivable way, which gives a little more to Leila and her brothers trappings of ancient tragedy.