Winner of the 2013 Venice Horizons Award Special Prize, Shahram Mokri's second feature Fish & Cat (Mahi va gorbeh) is a tour de force thriller realized in a single tracking shot in collaboration with veteran cinematographer Mahmud Kalari (A Separation, The Past).
College students from a Tehran university converge on the shore of a remote lake near the Iran-Iraq border ("a place of spirits and sprites") for an annual kite-flying festival, innocent of the plans of a trio of locals to slaughter one of them to provide human meat for a derelict restaurant.
"The story I'm about to tell you seems like a fable, but it's true" -script, Fish & Cat
Though the DPC version screened at MoMA was not the best, the film left a deep impression by means of expert writing, direction, cinematography, sound design, and music, and a closely choreographed mise-en-scène realized by a large ensemble cast, with several standout performances.
In a script that could have been a collaboration between Samuel Beckett and George Romero, Shahram Mokri employs an encyclopedic knowledge of horror-film tropes to fashion a profoundly moving essay on the futility of resistance against fate in the prison-house of time. Even an angel messenger ("He does things that are like miracles") is an impotent observer while on the shore of this lake and adjoining forest where the dead and the living, ghosts and spirits, meet and meet again. We are often left wondering, "How did they do that?" Some reviewers have complained about the 2-hour-plus running time. On the contrary, I say Fish & Cat would ideally be screened on a continuous loop running at least twice, from a winter afternoon to dusk.
The film also benefits from the work of Christophe Rezai (music) among others.
College students from a Tehran university converge on the shore of a remote lake near the Iran-Iraq border ("a place of spirits and sprites") for an annual kite-flying festival, innocent of the plans of a trio of locals to slaughter one of them to provide human meat for a derelict restaurant.
"The story I'm about to tell you seems like a fable, but it's true" -script, Fish & Cat
Though the DPC version screened at MoMA was not the best, the film left a deep impression by means of expert writing, direction, cinematography, sound design, and music, and a closely choreographed mise-en-scène realized by a large ensemble cast, with several standout performances.
In a script that could have been a collaboration between Samuel Beckett and George Romero, Shahram Mokri employs an encyclopedic knowledge of horror-film tropes to fashion a profoundly moving essay on the futility of resistance against fate in the prison-house of time. Even an angel messenger ("He does things that are like miracles") is an impotent observer while on the shore of this lake and adjoining forest where the dead and the living, ghosts and spirits, meet and meet again. We are often left wondering, "How did they do that?" Some reviewers have complained about the 2-hour-plus running time. On the contrary, I say Fish & Cat would ideally be screened on a continuous loop running at least twice, from a winter afternoon to dusk.
The film also benefits from the work of Christophe Rezai (music) among others.