Photo: Maziar Miri's Gradually...
With his second feature Gradually…, Iranian director Maziar Miri explores the misogynistic group-think that plagues a young husband named Mahmoud (Mohammad-Reza Foroutan) after his mentally ill wife Pari (Miloofar Khoshkholgh) disappears. Called home to Tehran from the middle-of-nowhere railroad company where he works as a welder, Mahmoud discovers his spouse and adolescent daughter missing, his neighbors spreading ugly rumors about the situation, and his relatives in hiding, appearing only to damn him and Pari for disgracing the family. Miri's quiet, contemplative camera fixates on the uneducated Mahmoud's morose countenance, capturing his inner conflict between loyalty to (and love for) his wife, and anger and shame over her actions, the latter soon overtaking his soul to the point that, when an unidentifiable corpse turns up at the morgue, he willingly accepts it as Pari in order to save face and find relief from public disparagement. Nick Schager
With his second feature Gradually…, Iranian director Maziar Miri explores the misogynistic group-think that plagues a young husband named Mahmoud (Mohammad-Reza Foroutan) after his mentally ill wife Pari (Miloofar Khoshkholgh) disappears. Called home to Tehran from the middle-of-nowhere railroad company where he works as a welder, Mahmoud discovers his spouse and adolescent daughter missing, his neighbors spreading ugly rumors about the situation, and his relatives in hiding, appearing only to damn him and Pari for disgracing the family. Miri's quiet, contemplative camera fixates on the uneducated Mahmoud's morose countenance, capturing his inner conflict between loyalty to (and love for) his wife, and anger and shame over her actions, the latter soon overtaking his soul to the point that, when an unidentifiable corpse turns up at the morgue, he willingly accepts it as Pari in order to save face and find relief from public disparagement. Nick Schager
