Mother

Ali Hatami's film runs two lines together. On one side are the grown children gathered around their old mother, back in the same house after years and talking their shared childhood through again. On the other is the mother's own preparation: she is getting ready for her last journey and takes part herself, cheerfully, in arranging the ceremonies to be held after her death. The film treats the death not as a moment of loss but as the reason a household comes together one final time. Hatami's visual manner is plain here too, with rooms, fabric and objects carrying their own weight inside the narrative. It is among the most remembered Iranian films about family.