The Best Old Movies on a Big Screen This Week: NYC Repertory Cinema Picks, February 17-23
The Paternal House (2012)
Directed by Kianoush Ayyari
For those whose understanding of Iranian cinema is understandably limited to that which is distributed in the United States, The Paternal House may be something of a shock. Its concerns are not apolitical and aestheticized like those of Abbas Kiarostami, nor are they political and personal like Jafar Panahi’s recent releases, or even a potential “explainer” of Iran as Asghar Farhadi’s films can be approached. The Paternal House begins in 1929, when a woman is killed by her younger brother and father for “bringing shame” to the family and buried in the basement. Other relatives, friends, and the mother return, all believing the daughter has gone missing until the truth gradually comes forward. It explores the effects of this so-called honor killing on subsequent generations while staying confined to the eponymous locale, a move that suggest allegorical intent. Ayyari’s approach is strictly sociological and interpersonal. He has no interest in explaining the attitudes or actions that brought about the original crime. He is likewise uninterested in placing each scenario and its year into a larger societal context. Even the changing legal and class status of the veil, hinted at in two brief interactions, is largely ignored. The house is a closed world, and epiphany arises in comparing the attitudes and actions of sons, fathers, and daughters of different generations.
The film does not proceed beyond 1929 until it is almost halfway through, leaving 50 minutes for the three remaining time periods. In 1944, the son now has children of his own and we see that his morals are inherited, as per the film’s title, when he hits his daughter for feigning illness to avoid having to see a much older suitor. What lurks beneath the basement floor is all but uncovered, and subsequent jumps show each generation a little more willing to admit wrongdoing than the previous. The approach makes the film not just a portrait of national progress but also an interrogation of the relationship between time and grief. Forrest Cardamenis (February 20, 6:45pm at the Film Society of Lincoln Center’s “Film Comment Selects”)