Atabai

Counting up from 2 the viewer is in a car with Atabai (Hadi Hejazfir) and his nephew Aydin (Danial Noroush). Returning from Tehran through wonderful landscapes to his home town after fifteen years architect Atabai finds that his brother-in-law Parviz has sold his orchard and that the new owners have tasked him with re-building.

Angered by this Atabai to some extent takes it out on Aydin who after the death of his sister (Parviz’s wife) is now basically his charge. The new owner is civil enough about the matter but uncle and nephew have other thoughts being attracted to his daughters: Aydin to Simin (Mahlagha Meynoushzad) and Atabai to the older Sima (Sahar Dolatshahi).

To compound matters he’s on bad terms with his father whom he sees as a coward in the slipstream of his sister’s death, resenting him for the cruelty of his early years, and the forced marriage of his sister.

There’s further pressure with his floundering with friendship with Yayha (Javad Ezati) who still calls him Kazem (Atabai being a title meaning great man in Turkish). It’s an old friendship that is complicated by some revelations. Added to this there’s the small matter that Atabai is falling in love with Sima as he flouts with tradition and culture.

This is a beautifully filmed, rather strange film that has some magnificent acting from a very lyrical script from Hadi Hejazifar, co-written with director Niki Karimi. There’s the obvious clash of youth and old as cultures change with some adapting more than others.

But in the main this is a character study of a man who is at the point of self-loathing as he questions everything and find himself wanting and trapped. He’s a success in some respects but in others he’s too scared and bitten to take the necessary steps forward to keep up, though fully aware that he must change. As when he catches Aydin flirting with the sisters, beating him badly for taking his shirt off only for him to apologise later on.

It all feels and look very personal, though it would unfair to call it a vanity project as there are themes here that will be familiar to many. However it doesn’t quite have the empathic engagement for the viewer to truly feel for Atabai, just understand him.