Travelers

Bahram Beyzai's 1992 Iranian film opens with preparations for a wedding. The family setting out are killed in a crash, and the wedding turns into mourning. At the centre is the mother's refusal to accept her daughter's death. The house is at once in grief and ready for a celebration; the film lays the two rites over each other in the same space and shows how death is refused. It opens with the characters speaking straight to camera, a scene often cited in Iranian cinema. The tone is ceremonial and the staging close to theatre. Who it's for: viewers of Iranian art cinema and formal experiment. Who it's not for: viewers expecting realist storytelling; the film is deliberately stylised.