This year at Cannes Iran being repped by just one film, the timely underground drama “Terrestrial Verses,” co-directed by Canada-based Alireza Khatami and Iran-based Ali Asgari, premiering in Un Ce…
,” co-directed by Canada-based Alireza Khatami and Iran-based Ali Asgari, premiering in Un Certain Regard. Shot in Tehran after the Mahsa Amini movement started, “Verses” consists of 12 tableaus depicting the increasingly absurd and tragic plight that Iranians face in their everyday life with a scathingly ironic deadpan tone.spoke to the directors about how they teamed up and decided to capture the zeitgeist in turbulent Tehran.
And we realized that this is such a beautiful format of a dialogue to bring to the structure of the film. And Ali had a few stories that were very absurd. Something that happened to him, or to his friends, and then he said: “Should we make it into a film? Just like a poem, with the structure of a poem? So we will make – well – verses and each verse is in conversation with the other ones.” Then a week later we had the script and two weeks after that we shot.We shot the film in two parts.
Let me ask you about your process. In working with your actors, was there some improvisation? Some films are very, very written and others kind of evolve as they’re being made. I’m curious about that aspect.This film was, very, very written because we had a philosophical angle we were going for and it’s a sensitive topic. We didn’t want to put anybody in trouble through an accidental improvisation that might have an implication for anybody. So we really thought about every word that was written.
The film’s 12 tableaus, let’s call them, it seems that each one has what you might call a topic, to be a bit simplistic about it. What do you consider to be some of the “topics” that you were describing or tackling or talking about in the film.Maybe I can tell you that the umbrella under which we were thinking. We were interested to see how regimes of power manage life of citizens, starting by their very body.
Of course you don’t have a crystal ball, but do you think Women, Life, Freedom marks a tipping point?I can say on my behalf, I don’t want to talk for Ali. As you mentioned, Nick, there is no crystal ball. And I don’t think any of us in Iran and any Iranians outside the country is looking for a tipping point. But it is definitely a tipping point in consciousness. It’s a tipping point for awareness. A lot of us were sleeping before, but now we are awake. Now we know what has happened.
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