Mum's Guest

Effat lives in a poor quarter of Tehran and learns that newly married relatives are coming to dinner that evening. There is almost nothing in the house. Her husband's wages have not come, there is not even an egg in the cupboard, and the guests will be at the door in a few hours. She does not want to tell the neighbours, but word spreads. Then everyone in the building arrives with something: one brings rice, one a pot, one a chair. The meal turns into a shared job and the evening becomes the work of the neighbourhood. Dariush Mehrjui directs. Golab Adine takes the lead. The source is a story by Houshang Moradi Kermani, a writer known in Iran for children's and folk stories. Mehrjui is among the founding names of Iranian cinema and is known for heavier films; this is one of his lightest and most widely seen works. The subject is poverty and the register is comedy; the film does not use shame as material for drama. The setting is almost entirely one apartment block and its stairwell, and the narrative builds neighbourliness physically. What the film sets out is not hospitality but the everyday form of solidarity; nobody says they are helping. It was a large commercial success in Iran. Who it is for: viewers who like Iranian cinema and comedy of everyday life. Who it is not for: little happens, the structure is simple, and the narrative stays on a single idea.