DESERTED STATION
Iran, 2002, 88 minutes, Colour.
Leila Hatami, Nezam Manouchehri, Mehran Rajabi.
Directed by Ali Reza Raisian.
Deserted Station is based on a short story by celebrated Iranian director, Abbas Kierostami. Kierostami is one of the most acclaimed of Iran's director's, especially during the 90s when he made a number of films set in the Iranian countryside (often with a car moving up and down the mountains). He then moved on to more experimental digital work in 2000.
This film was directed by Ali Reza Raisian, who accompanied Kierostami on a trip into the countryside. They experienced a breakdown. The story is based on their own experience and is interpreted by Raisian from his memories as well as from Kierostami's story.
The film shows a photographer photographing various ruins in the countryside. He is accompanied by his wife. As he swerves to avoid hitting a deer, the car breaks down. The film shows what happens during the rest of the day. His walking into a nearby town, meeting a teacher who also serves as a mechanic and who helps him with parts to repair the car, his taking his wife into the town so that she can take the place of the teacher and the film follows what happens during the day, especially in her relationship to the children. By the end of the day they move on, the children do not want them to leave - and the film ends, uncertainly, with a focus on the husband and wife sitting in the car, the children behind them.
As with so many Iranian films, humanity is very strong. The portrait of the couple, the wife and her possible pregnancy, the generous teacher and his help, the local adults and their hospitality, the children and their needing education as well as affirmation from their teachers, the students including a very small malformed young child.
The film highlights life in Iran, has a universal meaning as the characters are drawn in such a way that they transcend the culture.
1. A pleasing film about ordinary human beings? Iran, society, people in the countryside?
2. The title, the emphasis on the desert, the isolated station, the isolated town - the men all absent, finding work in other places? The children remaining with the elderly adults? The husband and wife finding themselves in this isolation?
3. The location photography, the countryside, the desert? The old ruins? The town? The colour photography at the different times of day in the town, on the highways? Musical score?
4. The portrait of the husband and wife, the husband and his taking photos, the wife sleeping? The possibility of her being pregnant, her past pregnancy history? The old women intuiting that she was pregnant? The swerving of the car, the breakdown? The husband walking into the town, his encounter with the teacher, with the children? Going back, the man trying to help, needing a part, the husband going on the motorbike with the teacher, getting the part, returning, the fixing of the car? The wife, her sleeping, waiting, going into the town, her background as a teacher, gathering the children, getting to know them, getting to know them by name, the little malformed girl and her carrying her? The adults? In the classroom, their activities, artwork? The children having to move out and look after the animals? The birth of the sheep? The meals, the wife gradually getting to know the people, feeling at home, their concern about her pregnancy? Going to see the train, with the children out on the countryside? Her husband's return, the gifts of the food, the farewells, the children running after the car, her continually stopping - the being torn between where she must go and her affection for the children and their needs?
5. The teacher, genial, with the children, mechanic, jack-of-all-trades? Trying to fix the car, seeing that the part was needed, the motorbike, chatting with the husband? His reputation in the village, a good man?
6. The adults, especially the women, old, looking after the children, the meals?
7. The children, the small group, in the classroom, some having to be absent, their playing together, artwork, the meals? Running to see the train go past? Their not wanting the wife to go? Running after the car, her giving them the food, their continually chasing the car?
8. A portrait of a day for an ordinary middle-class couple, different from their usual life, the transforming effect? The suggestion, by the teacher, that there were no deer in the countryside - and the interpretation of their almost hitting the deer as some kind of religious sign that they should stay rather than continue on the religious pilgrimage on which they were going?
