Page 11 - Cine Appétit Issue 01
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Rebanta Gupta Cine Appétit
adamantly remains silent during the shooting me a reply, give it to me now.” His vitriolic
of the film. The ending of the film is comments on her orthodox grandmother’s
apparently paradoxical, and I would try to outdated views on marriage, clearly make him a
decode it with the colors of hermeneutics. The representative of the modern Iranian youth,
entire film’s tension is resolved in the last frustrated with the intervention of the elderly
scene, it’s the pinnacle of the film’s dramatic people in amorous matters. He makes a
wavelengths. syllogistic approach to persuade the girl, much
like the lover in Andrew Marvell’s poem To His
Silence on the part of Tahereh creates Coy Mistress; the plight of Tahereh’s departed
ambivalent feelings in the audience’s mind. parents in the earlier undulated days of their
The Sanskrit phrase maunam sammati marriage hadn’t diminished their spirit to build
lakshanam states that silence indicates a new home. Then how could Hossein be an
acceptance. Is the mute Tahereh secretly exception? Through hard work, he’ll slowly
espousing Hossein’s persuasions and his construct their palace of happiness, as he
narrative on their future happy life as a confesses, “God is my witness, it’s not your
couple? Or is she simply ignoring him by beauty, nor anything else…I just want you to
pretending to read her book? The answer is have a place in my life.” Hossein’s monologue
hinted at in a scene, where Hossein and concretizes his position as a non-conformist,
Tahereh are playing the roles of a newly who creates fissures in the heart of the Iranian
married couple during the shooting. When traditions and system of power. However, he
the director asks her to refer to Hossein, her seems to not to have gained escape velocity
screen-husband, as “Mr.Hossein,” she keeps from his masculine pride, as he screams out in
addressing him simply as “Hossein,” in spite frustration at her silence, “Hossein can have as
of a volley of rebukes. It’s revealed that some many women as he wants!”
women have abandoned the practice of calling
their husbands “mister.”The scene anticipates
a future relationship between Hossein and
Tahereh, which is modeled on the modernist
ideal of equality in a relationship, rather than
the master-slave dialectics between husbands
and wives practised since time immemorial in
Iran.
The ending of the film depicts Hossein
following a silent Tahereh through the olive
grove. The rustic path, embroidered with the They melt into the green, relegated to two
dulcet green of the olive trees, followed by an small, almost invisible dots, they halt for a while
open meadow under the azure sky, remain as for a quick exchange of words, following which
silent witnesses to the rendezvous of the two they part ways. But what did she say? Nothing is
souls. Hossein continuously pesters Tahereh heard, only the tension that has been
to accept his proposal with an elegiac tone, “I accumulating musically by an orchestral
might not see you again, if you want to give
THE EASTERLY ISSUE 01 | SEPT ‘20 |PAGE 11
