Drown

Mohammad Kart's 2020 Iranian film begins with the spread of footage filmed at a women's swimming pool. Parvaneh is killed by her husband Hashem, who does it to protect the standing he has built in the neighbourhood, and his brother Hojat goes down into the Tehran underworld to find who leaked the video. The subject is the pressure that goes by the name of honour. The narrative does not justify the killing; as Hojat's search proceeds it becomes clear that responsibility does not rest with one person and that the whole neighbourhood feeds the arrangement. Javad Ezzati and Amir Aghaei lead. The images are dark and the violence direct; treating this subject so openly has been possible in only a limited number of Iranian films. Who it's for: those who follow Iranian crime drama. Who it's not for: viewers for whom the killing of a woman and neighbourhood coercion would sit heavily; the film takes the event as its detailed subject.