Sierra Urich’s grandmother, Behjat, has the tart, callused demeanor that comes from a life of tumult and loss. Married at 14 to an Iranian soldier, she grieved for older relatives who were mu…
’s grandmother, Behjat, has the tart, callused demeanor that comes from a life of tumult and loss. Married at 14 to an Iranian soldier, she grieved for older relatives who were murdered or executed, and raised a family that was scattered in the wake of the Iranian Revolution: As her children emigrated to the United States, she was unable to see them for 16 years, finally joining them in her mid-sixties.
What powers this Sundance competition premiere through its lulls and blurs is the warmth and good humor of its core family dynamic — as implied by the title, a Farsi term of endearment. Farsi itself is a sore point in Urich’s investigation: She cannot speak the language, while Behjat’s English is limited, and she fears that her relationship with her grandmother, while affectionate, is fundamentally impeded by this barrier.
Still, Urich gradually realizes that certain details are not just being lost in translation, but concealed, by a mother keen to protect her daughter from that which still plagues her. In its most moving and revealing scene, Mitra confides in her Thai hairdresser about her lingering PTSD from her Iranian youth, and the two women, both immigrant mothers, discuss the difficulties of keeping children both bound to, and independent from, their roots.
Urich, who has never traveled to Iran, imagines some ungraspable insight might be gained from seeing it for herself — though she’s mindful of the dangers and impracticalities of such a trip, and the mere suggestion of it sends Mitra into a panic.
Urich edits these montages with an often striking sense of contrast and piquant image selection, but we share her sense that a bigger picture is just out of view. Certain key chapters of family history are teased but never explained; even the filmmaker’s present-day life and social circle never emerge in full.
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