A Simple Event

Sohrab Shahid Saless's 1973 Iranian film follows a ten-year-old boy on the northern coast. He helps his father sell illegally caught fish, carries water from the well and goes to school; the three of them live in one room. The film produces no events. The same movements repeat every day; the narrative does not shorten them and holds the viewer inside the repetition. The mother's illness advances in the background and no one speaks of it. Saless built his cast from non-professionals and shot in real locations. There is almost no dialogue; the camera is fixed and the takes long. The film is counted among the founding works of the Iranian new wave. Who it's for: those who follow slow cinema and the Iranian new wave. Who it's not for: viewers expecting narrative; almost nothing happens across the film.