Terrestrial Verses - English subtitled
A satirical drama in nine chapters showing the Kafkaesque absurdity of daily life in Iran, and the despairing interactions of ordinary citizens with the government or people in positions of authority.
A woman is accused of driving a car without a headscarf, a father is criticised for wanting to give his new-born baby a name that is insufficiently Islamic, and a schoolgirl is taken to task for coming to school on the back of a young man’s motorbike. Their stories – sometimes humorous, sometimes gripping – are unfortunately typical of life in Iran, a country with a complex system of cultural, religious and institutional rules that govern daily life.
Directors Ali Asgari and Alireza Khatami filmed the nine chapters in a minimalist style, with a static camera focused on the citizens arguing with the authorities. Those authorities are consistently kept off-screen, with which the filmmakers accentuate the invisible nature of the (state) control Iranian citizens face.