SUBTRACTION

Iran, 2022, 107 minutes, Colour.

Taraneh Alidoosti, Navid, Mohammadzeh, Ali Bagheri.

Directed by Mani Haghaghi.

With its enigmatic title, no explicit explanation, this is a mysterious film. A quick review would say: Which is which? Followed by Who is who? Then questions of how and why.

For many decade, Iranians cinema has been of world standard, many awards, especially from Catholic, ecumenical and Interfaith juries.

The setting is Tehran, the 2020s, very much Iran as a secular society rather than religious. The screenplay could be very easily adapted to any culture.

The film opens, enigmatically, with a brawl in a corridor. The audience puzzles but, later in the film, this becomes highly significant, leading to dramatic complications, some of kindness, some of violence. And, then, the camera pans across, in close-up, the windows of a number of cars caught in a traffic jam, eventually returning to two women, a young woman having a driving lesson, the older woman the instructor. Suddenly, the instructor gets out of the car, notices a man, follows him onto a bus, gets out, sees him going to a building then with the woman on an upper story.

And, it is raining. And it rains throughout the film, the comment made that the North Pole is collapsing, unseasonable weather, climate change.

Perhaps it is best to say that this is a film about people who discover their doubles, their doppelgänger, thinking that they may be twins but this is not the case. Dramatically, of course, this is a huge challenge to the central actors who have to take both parts and who have to make them, sometimes similar, sometimes quite different. The characters, of course, are puzzled by their exact image in another person. The audience is puzzled, sometimes confused, and a reminder of that initial question as we watch particular sequences, which is which, who is who?

The issue might have been sorted out happily, especially with the driving instructor who is pregnant, on medication, but apprehensive, warned by the doctor to be careful about the effect of medication on the baby. Her husband is a plumber, conscientious. And, one of the supporting characters is her kind and understanding father-in-law. However, the other couple lives in tension. The husband is the one who was involved in the brawl initially. There is some alienation from his patient wife. They have a rather precocious seven-year-old son.

The dramatic effect of the puzzling and confusion is the challenge to audience emotions, whom they like, whom they dislike, confused emotional responses.

With all the best intentions in the world, there is an attempt to make peace with the victim of the brawl, now hospitalised, his family keeping vigil in the hospital, wanting vengeance – and meting it out.

The final 20 minutes of the film is rather unexpected, centred on taking the little boy to a national football match, but consequences for each of the four characters which they, and we, do not anticipate.

Some commentators have noted that there are elements of film noir in the screenplay echoes of some films like Vertigo – definitely so by the end. However, this is a probing of identity, emotions, relationships, emotional confusion.

1. The title? Explained or not? Subtraction/elimination?
2. A film from Iran, the 2020s, picture of life in Tehran, freedoms and restrictions?
3. The city settings, homes, the streets, driving instruction, plumbing, business offices, hospitals, the football match? Atmosphere? Musical score?
4. The introduction, the men fighting in the corridor – and this theme later being taken up, gesture of kindness, cause of death?
5. The central issue, the doubles, twins or not, the checking on the DNA, not twins? Seeming clones of each other? The performances by the central actors to create each different character? Clear, ambiguous, confused, and the effect on the audience wondering which is which? PsychologicFarzanehal drama? The Hitchcock touch (memories of Vertigo)?
6. The image of the traffic, the camera going from car to car, returning to focus on Farzaneh, the young woman in the lesson, the comment on the rain, the North Pole, climate change? Farzaneh, pregnant, distracted, seeing her husband, out of the car, into the bus, following him, seeing the apartment window? The return, the challenge to her husband, talking to her father-in-law?
7. Farzaneh, her pregnancy, nerves, medication, danger to the pregnancy, going to see the doctor, the discussions? The later return to the doctor with the story of the doubles, the doctor thinking she was hallucinating?
8. Jalal, husband, going to the doctor with his wife, concerned, on the motorbike, his plumbing job, the accusation, his explanation of being away, the certificated document?
9. The story of Farzaneh and Jalal, the kindly father-in-law and his interventions?
10. The story of Bita and Mohsen, marriage, the young son, home life, his temper, the fight in the office, the hospitalisation of the old man, the demand for an apology and signing the document, his refusal, getting his wife to go, her apology, the reaction? Her explaining to Jalal, his offer to apologise instead, driving with her son, bonding, the promise of the football match, in the building, Bita seeing her husband, distracting him, sending the boy out that the building, Jalal and his apology, the signing of the document, his being beaten, the blood? Bita and her shock?
11. Farzaneh and Bita, their meeting, the shock at meeting each other, preventing the neighbours from seeing them both together, the bonding?
12. Jalal and his wound, fixing it himself, Bita and her helping?
13. Mohsen, the document, deciding to move, packing?
14. The episode at the football match, Mohsen following, seeing Jalal and his son, their bonding? His bashing of Jalal and leaving him? Driving the car? Bashing his wife, putting the both in the car, over the cliff, the fire?
15. Farzaneh in the car, the miscarriage, her phone call to Bita, her arriving too late, going to the hospital?
16. The end, more sane persuading fFarzaneh to act as his wife, mother to the son? The domestic sequences?
17. The father-in-law, his visit, offering sympathy, his being warned not to come again because of disturbing the wife?
18. The little boy, catching up with him – and telling him that this was not his mother?
19. The plausibility of the plot? Doubles? Interactions? Psychological story? Crime story?