This is my third and final review of movies I saw at this year’s Venice Film Festival. I have saved the best for last. Of the 18 movies I watched (don’t get excited, 14 of them were short films – each only about 8 to 12 minutes long), this was by far the best. I am not alone in that thinking, this movie scored Best Director and Best Actor honors by the jury at the festival. I am pretty sure it will also get some Oscar buzz as a nominee for Best Foreign Film. And I would not be surprised if a Best Supporting Actor nomination happens, as well.
“Bedoune Tarikh, Bedoune Emza”
That translates to “No Date, No Signature.” Directed by Vahid Jalilvand.
This is an Iranian film and I loved every aspect of it. The synopsis from the Venice Film Festival catalog reads: “The forensic pathologist Dr. Nariman, a principled and virtuous man, has an accident with a motorcyclist and his family, and injures the 8-year old son. He pays compensation and offers to take the child to the clinic nearby, but the family declines. The next morning, he finds the same little boy has been brought in for an autopsy. Dr. Nariman faces a dilemma now: is he responsible for the child’s death due to the accident or did the boy die due to food poisoning according to the other doctor’s diagnosis?”
More to the story: the boy’s father had been buying cheap chicken for his family from the local slaughterhouse, and that did cause food poisoning in the child. The boy’s father, frantic and distraught, goes to the slaughterhouse and confronts the man who illegally sold him the bad chickens. That man later dies in the hospital so the father is arrested and charged with murder.
Now what does the good doctor do? A moral dilemma, for sure, and a really terrific, tightly written story.
Excellent camera work throughout this nail biter really brings home the mood of despair and confusion of the characters.
Finally, absolutely superb performances by Amir Aghaee (Dr. Nariman), Navid Mohammadzadeh (the father), and Alireza Ostadi (the mother). All told, this is a really superior movie. If it comes to a cinema near you – GO SEE IT!
Until Next Year.
