A film by Amir Azizi
With: Amirhossein Hosseini, Hadis Nazari, Nader Pourmahin, Nariman Farrokhi, Pirouz Nemati, Sohrab Mahdavi, Elham Azizi, Sajjad Hamidian, Delaram Kamareh
Inside Amir follows a young man in Tehran on the verge of emigrating. Amid scattered memories, unfinished conversations, and slow-moving days, he faces a decision he hasn’t fully made yet: to leave or to stay. The only thing he refuses to part with is his bicycle – a companion through the city’s streets and a symbol of his past. As his departure to join Tara, his girlfriend now in Italy, grows closer, we learn how years ago, their relationship kept him from joining a family trip that ended in tragedy. Tara became more than a partner – she came to represent the life he was spared.
Our rate: *
A short film produced very quickly (production began in May of this year), and it shows. The film seeks to convey the mixed feelings that someone might experience when they are about to change their life and say goodbye to their loved ones and their country. In this respect, the film is a declaration of love for Iran and its capital, Tehran, which for once is not shown under bombardment. The film does not ask political questions, but follows the protagonist’s bike rides and invites us to follow him into small interiors to talk about nothing and everything (mostly nothing) with his friends, and into different neighborhoods in the north of the capital, where Amir breathes in the fresh air. All this could convey a sense of Oblomovism and universal emotions if the director hadn’t overused the motif, if he had created an adult character rather than a bored child, if he had been able to fill the dialogues with profound or intelligent thoughts, and above all if his character had been somewhat charismatic, which the main actor fails to achieve. Apart from 20 improvised minutes in which the female characters convey something more palpable, we too find ourselves bored with Amir.
Be First to Comment