QUICK AND DIRTY: LIVE FROM VENICE

Billed as “sociological portrait of modern Tehran”, sculptor and video artist Shahab Fotouhi’s debut feature peeks into the trials and tribulations or a family of three people and their closest associates, in present-day Tehran. It sets out to depict the city as a hustling and bustling metropolis, a place undergoing fast changes, and gently flirting with cosmopolitan behaviour. A meeting point for lost souls, seeking a response to their many afflictions through extensive conversations. This is a movie about people pouring their heart out to one another as they seek spiritual solace.

Twenty-year-oldish Minoo (Yas Fasrkhindeh) is close friends with Keyvan (Ali Hanafian), a handsome young man of around her age. They sit on a park bench, and trade family secrets, as well as trivial pearls of knowledge. There is a hint of romance in the air, yet the relationship never blossoms. This is partly related to the country’s strict censorship, where unmarried interaction of any sort – even display of affection – is still a taboo. Meanwhile, her mother Sima (Leili Rashidi) is considering separating from her gormless and insecure husband Behzad (Arash Naimian). That’s because their relationship is dead in the water. Unbeknownst to him, she’s seeking a new home for herself and Minoo. There is a focus on the female character, and the generational contrast between them: daughter is ready to love, while mum is seeking to disconnect.

The highly prosaic nature of Boomerang will lead to inevitable comparisons to Abbas Kiarostami. Yet Shahab Fotouhi’s lacks the spontaneity and the vigour of his late countryman. The interactions feel contrived, the lines delivered with little passion and confidence. And the takeaways are just too vague. The dialogues come and go indeed like a boomerang. They return to the same position without providing viewers with anything new. The auspicious yet fairly conventional cinematography fails to lift the story, or to inject it with a touch of lyricism.

What’s most peculiar about Boomerang is that the female characters do not always wear a hijab – both indoors and outdoors. In fact, Minoo does not wear a headscarf at all. And the soundtrack contains at least one woman singing (probably the iconic Googoosh, but my scarce knowledge of the Persian alphabet prevented me from confirming my suspicion in the credits). These violations would have been unthinkable two years ago, before the Woman, Life and Freedom protests. It is questionable, however, whether these changes represent a genuine advance, or just the fact that this is a German co-production. Will Boomerang remain confined to the Festival circuit, or will Iranian people ever watch it?

Boomerang premiered in the Venice Days strand of the 81st Venice International Film Festival.