SYDNEY FILM FESTIVAL: Whenever that cookie cutter tiger emblem of the Rotterdam Film Festival pops up, I need to take a deep breath. Deeper still if the imprimatur of the Hubert Bals Fund, which helps put money in the hands of (rich) filmmakers from poor underprivileged or marginalised countries (they aren’t handing out cameras in the ghettoes you know), is also present. The stylistic stamp is usually seen in shoddy sound quality, wobblecam and amateur performances.
Modest Reception does build dramatically, but the narrative payoff is a dull thud
But after the Hubert Bals title on Modest Reception, surprises abound: jazzy techno-style music accompanies sophisticated and fluid credits that hint at the influence of Saul Bass. The titles are followed by a perfectly framed and beautiful image of a roadside guard on an unnamed Iranian mountain range. Time to throw prejudices aside!
The guard’s attempt to light a cigarette is interrupted by the arrival of a man and a woman in a small, muddied hatchback car. As the guard discovers when he tries to prevent their progress, the pair Kaveh (writer/director Mani Haghighi) and Leyla (Taraneh Alidoosti) are a brother and sister, respectively, who have come from Tehran, with Leyla driving because Kaveh’s arm is broken. The pair bicker over something that the guard can’t comprehend, while Leyla’s phone keeps ringing, culminating in the irate Kaveh throwing it into the roadside snow. She retrieves the phone and Leyla makes the peace by giving the soldier a huge plastic bagful of Iranian money banknotes before they race their car past the roadside guards. It’s a great opening scene. And to top it off, the nuanced performances are enjoyably frenetic.
As Kaveh and Leyla leave the soldier behind, their laughter betrays that their argument was all an act. However, they are sincere in their desire to give away the several bags of money in their possession as urgently as they can.
Its narrative direction established, Modest Reception has the pair enter several episodes ready to tell whatever lies are necessary to give the money away. As is common in Iranian cinema (the work of Asghar Farhadi, whom both leads worked with in About Elly, being a great example), each argumentative exchange exposes the network of rules and contradictions that Iranians must negotiate in order to live, with the audience invited to feel their frustration as the inconsistencies build.
But despite the increase in technical quality and care for performance and direction, Modest Reception falls into the underwritten trap of many Rotterdam/Hubert Bals films which confuse the simplicity of role model film The Bicycle Thieves with its powerful story and its conflicted morality. Modest Reception does build dramatically, but the narrative payoff (why are they giving the money away), is a dull thud, making the increased emotional investment required by the audience (in a story that shows increasing signs of going nowhere) a bad debt. The ultimate effect is equally true of films from anywhere: all the money and technical expertise in the world won’t compensate for a weak and underdeveloped script. Maybe Leyla and Kaveh (or the Hubert Bals Fund) should have considered giving a bag of money to a script editor.
