“Shock film of the Cannes festival. “Great thriller about a misogynistic serial killer. “False Iranian film. » Ali Abbasi’s latest feature film, Nights of Mashhad, which hits theaters on July 13, has been talked about a lot. Especially since the main actress Zahra Ami Ebrahimi, who fled Iran to continue her career, won the prize for female interpretation. A raw and realistic film, which honors a new character: the city of Mashhad itself, with its shadowy areas, its nightlife and its tormented inhabitants…
Iran. 2001. A suburb. A shirtless woman looks at herself in the mirror. We know. She gets dressed, puts on makeup. She tenderly kisses her child who does not know. Not yet. Her face veiled, her lips blood red, her eyes misty with mascara, she walks the streets. She chains violent customers. Her face swollen, she pauses in her nocturnal daily life, out of breath. She visits this old woman, a sort of shaman with features drawn by time and misery, a sort of spiritual refuge with the scent of opium… And then, she resumes. And suddenly, we hear it, finally. This motorcycle noise, rough and sinister which perforates the film through and through. We see him coming, this predator, this faceless shadow. It locates its prey, brings it home, and strangles it. There is no suspense, we know, from the beginning we know. A static shot, a scene of agony, a convulsing body, a twitching face, empty eyes, completely empty…
Both victim and executioner
Ali Abbasi could not have better announced the color of his new film which paints the portrait of Saeed Hanaei, one of the most famous serial killers in Iran. A man who has faith. A Shia citizen above suspicion. Both victim and executioner, this media character is restored in all its complexity. Never manipulative, always honest, the religious extremist inspired Ali Abbasi who found him strangely at peace with himself, happy. A man victim of his chaotic journey. Sent to the front line during the Iran-Iraq war, Saeed Hanaei sacrificed his youth for his country, in the hope of making it better and giving meaning to his life. He then discovers that society has nothing to do with him, that the sacrifices he made during the conflict have changed nothing. He evolves in an existential void, despite his faith in God, and perhaps above all because of it. There is a new mission, a mission in the name of Allah. Convinced to purge Iranian society of impure individuals, he managed to kill 16 women before being arrested and tried. It was during the highly publicized trial of Saeed Hanaei that Ali Abbasi was really challenged by his story: “In a normal world, it is obvious that a man who murdered 16 human beings would be considered guilty. But, in Iran, it is different: part of the public opinion and the most conservative media began to praise Hanaei as a hero”.
“A society that has become a serial killer”
Nights of Mashhad addresses the deeply rooted misogyny in Iranian society. A cultural misogyny more than a political one. It is not so much the Supreme Court of the Islamic Republic which is called into question, since it declares Saeed Hanaei guilty and condemns him to death by hanging, but the support of the masses with regard to this “martyr of Islam”. When Saeed’s son goes to the supermarket after the trial, the cashier cheers him on and offers him free food. A Muslim society that encourages murder even though Islam prohibits murder. “Human beings are an edifice of God, cursed is he who destroys this edifice,” says the prophet (cf. Cairn.info). A film that raises the question of the ethical limits of the act of killing. The limits from which we switch to dehumanization. If François Hollande pardoned Jacqueline Sauvage who fired 3 shots at her husband who beat her every night, it is because the act of killing is not always so easily reprehensible. The law provides for the case of self-defence. But, the women that Saeed Hanaei brutally murdered, what did they do to him? Nothing, absolutely nothing. They tried to make their way through an anti-social society that refuses to see the endemic misery of the city of Mashhad.
Thesis, antithesis, synthesis
And yet, Ali Abbasi does not seek to stigmatize the corrupt societies of the Middle East: “for me, the film tells a precise story, around particular characters, and is not intended to be a thesis film denouncing certain social problems”. Mehdi Bajestani captures the character of Saeed with precision and rationality. The immense TV star Zar Amir Ebrahimi breathes a breath of frustration but also of freedom into his character, a journalist who circumvents misogynistic codes to lead a relentless quest for truth and unearth the serial killer. Ali Abbasi thwarts the Manichaeism of the classic thriller to mirror these two characters with contradictory missions and restore all the complexity of this social problem. This film does not approach the enigmatic dimension of a serial killer but the banality of the existence of a disembodied, rough and flat man. The themes of misogyny and dehumanization are only broached to provide viewers with a lesson in humanity… Why put prostitutes in the spotlight? To this question, the Iranian director replies: “I would like us to give them back some of their dignity and their humanity which were stolen from them. Not to make them saints, or unfortunate victims, but to consider them as full human beings, just like us”.
Mashhad, who are you?
Ali Abbasi’s genius lies in his ability to sketch an invisible yet omnipresent character. An invasive, ubiquitous character, who gives way to the giants of Iranian cinema: the touching Mehdi Bajestani, who took a huge risk by playing in this film, whose journey is strangely similar to that of his character and the cheeky Zar Amir Ebrahimi, who left Iran after a compromising video leaked and now lives in Paris. A character diluted but which nevertheless remains indelible: the city of Mashhad. The “spiritual capital of Iran”, which is home to an ultra-conservative religious center and in which endemic prostitution is developing, sees its veil removed: its industrial landscapes, its disreputable suburbs, its corrupt authorities, its inhabitants tormented by God and by misery, its famous mausoleum which attracts the faithful to the heart of Shiite Islam, like a spider weaving its web to trap its prey. “The Spider”, is the stage name of Saeed that the Iranian press had found at the time, it is also the predator who inspired Ali Abbasi to return to the corrupt maneuvers of this city which vampirizes its inhabitants …
Visual: © official movie poster