Hamoon

Hamid Hamoun is trying to write a thesis on the sacrifice of Abraham's son and on faith. At the same time his wife Mahshid wants a divorce. He cannot accept it, and both the thesis and the marriage come apart in his hands. The film gives his wanderings across a single day, his returns to the past, his fantasies and his nightmares, all folded together. Dariush Mehrjui writes and directs. Khosrow Shakibai plays Hamoun and Bita Farrahi plays Mahshid. The structure is not linear: the real, the remembered, the dreamed and the imagined intersect on one plane, and which is which is not always marked. Its position in Iran is particular. It appeared at the end of the first decade after the revolution and became the work in which an educated, urban, disoriented generation recognised itself. Hamoun became a type and lines from the film were widely repeated. In polls on the best Iranian films it appears near the top regularly. Khosrow Shakibai became the actor of a generation with this part. The tension at the centre is between an intellectual search and the demands of ordinary life, and the film does not vindicate either. Who it is for: viewers who like Iranian cinema and psychological drama with a scattered structure. Who it is not for: the structure is demanding, the cultural references are dense, and the character's self pity will push some viewers away.