This intimate yet universal family tale was selected to represent Iran in the International Oscar category. The debut feature shows a lot of promise for writer-director Babak Lotfi Khajepasha. He’s also not the only Iranian nominee contending for the International Oscar; exiled director Mohammad Rasoulof’s also poetically-titled The Seed of the Sacred Fig, set against political protests in Tehran, was chosen to represent Germany.
Although In the Arms of the Tree (Dar Aghooshe Derakht) touches on divorce, it deals with less controversial subject matter. Its storyline suggests a strong support for the nuclear family, and the cinematography accentuates the beauty of the Iranian countryside. The film is full of symbolism, with the natural world playing a role in the characters’ lives and foreshadowing events to come.
Kimia (Maral Baniadam) and Farid (Javad Ghamati) are seeking a divorce due to the wife’s mysterious illness. Showing signs of anxiety, she is unable to travel beyond the 15-kilometer sign on the road out of town, bites her fingers compulsively, faints occasionally and senses dread all around her (like noting the sheep are the color of gravestones). She says she’s “depressed” and “languishing,” and it’s out of her control. Farid seems to still love her and want for their relationship to work, though he’s also flirting with a much younger female employee.
Their plans involve each parent taking one of their sons (Ahoura and Rayan Lofti) to live with them. But 11-year-old Taha and his five-year-old brother Alisan are inseparable. The mature Taha takes care of Alisan while his distracted parents are mostly absent and their makeshift babysitter-uncle’s carelessness borders on abuse – though Reza (Rouhollah Zamani) also loves the boys and spends significant time with them.
The parents are advised to implement “distance practicing” to get the boys used to being apart, but more than one person suggests Alisan will “die” without Taha to watch over him. Indeed, Taha saves Alisan’s life in an early scene. It’s one example of the use of foreshadowing in the film. Taha has spotted a white balloon Alisan always ties to his arm floating up into the trees. A crate of baby ducks entrusted to Taha’s care, and the near deaths of fish in the family’s fish farm, likewise parallel later events.
When Farid tries to take Taha away even just for a day, they get into a minor car crash. Farid explains the pending family separation as they sit together on a rock overlooking a river carved into a valley that represents another separation – the border between Iran and Turkey.
In the Arms of the Tree recently won the Special Jury Prize at the 10th Annual Asian World Film Festival in Los Angeles. The film constructs its story deliberately, sticking closely to the family members and revealing clues that build up to a powerful and excruciating third act that forces its characters, brought to authentic life in powerful performances, to reevaluate their lives.
Review originally published at AWFJ.org
Images courtesy of Luckymatrix
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