As the movie begins, Mr Hekmati is clumsily completing the move of his personal belongings (which include absurdly large family photos) to his new modest quarters. He is a schoolteacher and has been assigned to the local school. He looks like an intellectual out of a Godard movie including thick frame carey glasses. He sticks out in the town like a sore thumb and arouses the curiosity of his new neighbors.
For the rest of the movie we are witnesses to his uneasy interaction with his neighbors and with the principal and colleagues at school. They (as Mr Hekmati) are not sure about the reasons for his transfer. His students are unruly at the beginning but mutual confidence develops after a while. He becomes involved with Atieh, the sister of one of his pupils. Atieh struggles to care for her old and ailing mother and insure an education for her brother. To complicate things, she suffers the attentions of a local tough, a big man in town.
This is one of the movies that started the torrent that made Iran a powerhouse of world cinema. However, it has little to do with the subjects and feelings in the works of later directors like Kiarostami, Panahi or Makhmalbaf. Downpour evokes various genres such as American romantic comedies (with a touch of screwball),Italian neorealist movies but especially the quirky output of the Czechoslovak New Wave.
This work had a troubled history. The negative and all copies were seized in 1979 by state authorities and never heard of again, probably destroyed or lost in some obscure archive. Fortunately, the director kept a positive and the copy we stream is an excellent restoration by the World Cinema Project of Martin Scorses's The Film Foundation.
It is difficult to find fault with this film. Script (by the director) is witty and acting and cinematography are excellent . Perhaps the subject matter is not enough to justify a length of more than two hours.
Plot summary
A well educated and humble teacher arrives in a new city and at a new job in the pre-revolutionary Iran. He falls in love with a hardworking underprivileged young woman that nurses her very old mother and raises her young brother. In an environment where commitments and social problems often stand in the way between people and their dreams.
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Whimsical comedy/drama
A simple story,Perfect acting,Magnificent ending.
This movie is the second movie of Bahram Beizai the best Iranian director.When I found the VCD version of this movie I somehow hesitated to watch it,despite the fact that I love Beizaie's work.Eventually,I watched it and boy I enjoyed it a lot.
Mr.Hekmati(Parviz Fanizade) a single and innocent young teacher arrives at an area in down town Tehran,where he starts teaching.One day he throws one of the students out of the class and there the story begins.Atie(Parvaneh Masoumi) who supports his brother and mother comes to school to ask from Mr.Hekmati that why he has thrown her brother out of the class.Then,somehow love at the first sight happens,but Hekmati keeps denying it.This is not the end of the story because there is a man who helps Atie gives her money and keep asking her to marry him.
The ending of this movie is great.I recommend this movie to all those people who love artistic movies.
Welldone Beizai.
Alireza.Akhlaghi.Official
At a time when typical filmfarsi (the movie made before iran revolution) were in the same time and time as their counterparts, the construction and revival of a new thinking in this field seemed risky and even deadly. Especially when demanded, it would have been more productive from the angle of the suppliers, and more investment than before. This routine and this demand seems obviously logical, but there were directors who wanted to be frantic and depending on the type of ambition, power and faith in the work, in this way, they presented works that some of them had to do with the finer works in this Backgrounds turned out. Risk-taking power and the ability to master individual abilities in this way were, in their time, a big risk, which is such a worthwhile gift. At that time, 1972 films were made that did not look like other films from a style. In all the films of that era, the audience's desire was a happy ending, but it was not the case in this film, and it was argued that one could, without regard to the instinctive appearances of the audience, follow the fact that it was not necessary to make what was meant by others Is. It is possible to have an opinion in this field and make the story with a firm determination and what was just what the director and storyteller was about to construct and exploit. The Downpour of the first feature film by Bahram Beyzaie is a striking example of the new wave of Iranian cinema, which independently, regardless of its prevailing rule of time, is the end of a happy journey, and it seems successful in this regard and in this respect. Now that the film is an age 45 years old , its continues to be in the field of the New Wave in this time, and has signed the big Bahram Beyzaei signature and is one of his honors. Of course, this movie was subject to destruction, which was restored and remained by the Scorsese Foundation.