The Cow: Iranian Film retrospective at the REX cinema

NOTE: In Farsi with German subtitles.

Sixty years after the Iranian New Wave, 46 years after the revolution, 9 years after Abbas Kiarostami's death and 2 years after the assassination of Dariush Mehrjui, the REX cinema is offering the opportunity to compare pre- and post-revolutionary films from Iran and to discover new connections.

Meeting time allows us 15 minutes before the film starts to find each other - please be on time so we can get seats together.

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Tonight's movie, from Wikipedia: The Cow is a 1969 Iranian film directed by Dariush Mehrjui, written by Gholam-Hossein Saedi based on his own short story. Some critics consider it the first film of the Iranian New Wave.

The story begins by showcasing the close relationship between a middle-aged Iranian villager Masht Hassan and his beloved cow. Hassan is married but has no children. His only valuable property is a cow that he cherishes as the only cow in the village. The movie is very well-known because of its psychological and social criticisms. There are several psychological messages behind the main character’s delusion. The movie depicts a very superstitious society in which people believe in an ultimate ultra-mundane power which will save them from the devil, the eternal enemy of humankind.

Funded by the Shah of Iran, the film's director, Mehrjui, had been forced to whitewash the buildings of the village before shooting so they did not look so neglected. However, the film was immediately banned by the Shah because of its negative portrayal of impoverishment in rural Iran. It was later smuggled out of the country and won the FIPRESCI critics prize at the 1971 Venice Film Festival.

Iran's Ayatollah Khomeini was reported to have admired the film. This, in turn, was reported to have been the saving grace that allowed Iranian cinema to continue rather than being banned after the Iranian Revolution.