QUICK’N DIRTY: LIVE FROM TALLINN
Snow dots the mountains of Iran. This is where 16-year-old Sogol lives with her family. Like many adolescents, she dreams of a happier life, but the desolate weather threatens to kill that reality. Besides the nature, her world is shaped by patriarchal values and customs, but she strives to make a better future for a younger relative named Delaram. The key is through education, but this is hard to for women and girls to achieve.
It’s Winter is an immersive and sensory experience. Shots linger, focus being placed on the sound effects such as rain and falling weather. There is a long, lingering shot on the waste bags that have quadrupled on the ground, with people in raincoats searching through the debris. Birds fly uncontrollably in the sky, suggesting that intense changes in temperature is to emerge. Another still is focused on the roof of a wooden house, barely salvaging the people inside from the wet. Nature parades this idyllic part of earth. Little noises – bleating animals, slow strands of hail, etc – form the basis of the work, becoming something of an additional film character. And then there’s the enrapturing shot of a herd of goats marching in one line. .
This is a difficult place to live in, as Sogol realises. Despite the fact that she lives far from town, the central character gets penalised for not reporting a death that occurred half a decade earlier, when she was just a child. A man drives off on his motorbike, tempting the locals with a freedom few will experience. Far away from these people are machines that blow-out fumes of fire, filling the sky will yellow. Director Sajad Imani uncovers a country divided between humanity and machinery.
Perhaps the most visceral scene comes 15 minutes into the movie: a red moon cuts to a blaze of fire, and a solitary woman peers at both. Besides the goats and green trees comes an earth filled with terror, and almost certain death. The land is rife with danger, despair, dignity and duty. In this place, fathers prefer to bring their daughters on a motorbike, even with the promise of an offer of a trip in a car.
“It is cold,” the people in the vehicle insist, but on the bike they go. Occasionally, the director is more interested in the landscape than in the humans guiding the story. Sogol walks through shocking quantities of waste; coal and dirty bags are spread across the road. Entertainment comes in the form of bonfires in the cold climates; and rifles, typically aimed up at the air. And then there’s Delaram, who needs to be cuddled and cherished, no matter the temperature.
Sogol has to wear a scarf, not for religious reasons, but to protect herself from the rotting stench emanating from the black bags. For all the pictorial magnificence that surrounds the people, their lives are dominated by work: sifting through rubbish, hunting for food, supporting the community. Both character and viewer have prepared themselves for the heavy snow that materialises in the second half of the film. The edits of white-covered mountains add depth to the images, making this virtually a three-dimensional experience.
It’s Winter just premiered in the Doc@PÖFF International Competition of the 29th Tallinn Black Nights Film Festival.
