The Report (Abbas Kiarostami, 1977)
Available as a supplement on the Criterion release of
Certified Copy, Kiarostami's second feature provides a nicely understated view of Tehran two years before the Iranian Revolution. The film itself barely survived 1979, with the only known extant copy being this analog video transfer from a damaged, subtitled print. Given that warning, I was expecting far worse, but the film is completely watchable, with only a few real damaged frames and a tolerable amount of fading.
The Report is very much a 70s film, with wide lapels and Persian pornstaches required attire for all the men. The style mixes the verbose, marital enmity of a Cassavetes film with the voyeuristic naturalism of many Eastern European films of the period (I'm thinking of Poland, in particular — Zanussi's
Quarterly Balance, Skolimowski's
Moonlighting, etc.). It's not quite penetrating enough to call it a character study, but perhaps too pointed for a slice-of-life label. It falls somewhere in between.
The story revolves around Mahmoud, a tax collector for the Ministry of Finance, who is established as something of a jerk before it's even clear that he's the main character. His closest colleagues are the Iranian Eric Bogisian and the Iranian Simon Helberg. His wife Azam is played by Shohreh Aghdashloo (for real), 26 years before her Oscar-winning role in
The House of Sand and Fog). At both work and home, Mahmoud is a loser, a victim of his passivity, as he becomes more and more imprinted with the worst attitudes of the society around him. The Bogosian character acts as a stand-in for that society at large — the charismatic alpha male who is gleefully indifferent to his role as a public servant and who sees his wife's hospitalization for the birth of their son as an excuse to get away for a guys' night. By trying to emulate this type, Mahmoud sinks further into loserdom, proving as inept at adultery as he is at bribery. And strong-willed Azam isn't the type to let him off the hook for his failings.
Interspersed throughout the film are long conversations about bureaucracy and materialism and paths to success in modern Tehran. Mahmoud is present for all these, but mostly on the periphery, as if he's a blank slate, with little to contribute to the discussion. These scenes seem to deepen the parallels but Mahmoud's character and the society at large, though rather cryptically. In fact, much of my description of the film is heavily interpretative and probably half wrong. It almost doesn't matter, as the film is well paced, despite a very patient and largely minimalist style, and almost always interesting. The last fifteen minutes are a bit of a letdown, however, with the film ending on a rather unsurprising whimper. I had expected to recommend
The Report more strongly until that point.
Grade: B-
pixote