Sohrab Shahid Sales

Sohrab Shahid-Saless (June 28, 1944, Tehran – July 2, 1998, Chicago) was a director, screenwriter, translator, editor, and a leftist in Iranian cinema. He is regarded as a founder of the Iranian New Wave cinema. The films of Shahid-Saless are different in style and theme than all of his contemporaries, which is why he’s acquired a unique stature in Iranian film history. After making two feature films in Iran and facing countless problems, he decides to further pursue his filmmaking in Germany, and later the U.S. Shahid-Saless also faced numerous problems outside of Iran, and after making a few low-budget films and a lengthy battle with depression and alcoholism, died in isolation and solitude in America. He’s heralded as the father of modern Iranian cinema. A filmmaker who never had a homeland anywhere in the world.

According to himself, Sohrab Shahid-Saless admired Anton Chekov the most. He even directed a documentary on Chekov during his time in Germany. Although the works of Chekov carry a considerably more playful tone than the slow and stale films of Shahid-Saless, but evidences of the influence, the Russian writer’s worldview had on the Iranian filmmaker are there to see. It’s difficult and almost impossible for both artists to form an emotional connection. People are fundamentally isolated and apart from one another. No one’s able to express their affection and kindness in the films of Shahid-Saless. They all prefer to stay alone in their isolation as they’re unable to express their feelings and form emotional bonds with others.

In the cinema of Shahid-Saless, it seems like emotions exists inside every person, but they produce comical and ridiculous situations immediately after they’re expressed, which is why characters tend to abstain from expressing emotions as much as possible. In “A Simple Event”, the father decides to buy his son a new coat in order to make amends. This is the only scene in the film with a sympathetic and sentimental exchange between the father and the son. But the coat he ends up choosing is ridiculously oversized and expensive, and in the end, they both exit the store without buying anything. The footprints of Chekov are evident once again. A cruel comedy that derides the kindness and affection that’s bonded the father and son, and once again returns them to their respective solitude.

The characters of Shahid-Saless’ cinema are incredibly alone and isolated. They usually live in confined spaces. They usually prefer not to go out, stay away from others and keep their windows closed. In his opinion, the pain of loneliness is the natural result of living in a capitalist society and something people won’t ever overcome. In “Far From Home”, the immigrant who feels lonely in Germany, gets invited to someone’s house for the first time, by an old German lady who’s also lonely. The old lady speaks of her son during dinner and the Turkish immigrant repeats unrelated sentences as a sign of comprehension without ever understanding her. Their struggle to communicate becomes bleaker, yet funnier with each passing moment. Eventually the old lady declares that she’s given up on trying to talk to him. The Turkish immigrant quietly leaves the table, and then the house.

In the cinematic world of Shahid-Saless, people have already dealt with their loneliness and usually don’t react to the tragic situation at hand. They have accepted their fate. The few characters who do attempt to connect with society and become a social person, end up reacting in unusual and pitiful ways. In “Order”, the unemployed character of the story, goes to the streets on non-working days and shouts: “Wake up! Wake up!”, while others try to prevent him from doing so. It’s to no avail however, as he’s sent to the mental institution. There, he repeats this act with a similar sounding word in German and repeats: “Auschwitz! Auschwitz!”

The films of Sohrab Shahid-Saless are categorized in the sub-genere of “slow cinema”. In this type of modern cinema, contrary to classic cinema, bodies struggle to move within a scene and have little to no energy to do so. As Elena Gorfinkel once wrote, ‘in slow cinema, you’re robbed of the distance between the factory and the theater, as well as the distance between actors and the director.’ The actors are exhausted, just as the director is. The film feels dull just like the factory does. In Shahid-Saless’ work, the bodies of characters are extremely tired, drained and heavy. His characters are slow and bored. The experience of watching his films resembles a dull bus-ride home from the factory.

Bodies are vital in the cinema of Shahid-Saless. The body is nothing but matter, density and adversity. Something weighable and heavy. Obscure, undefined, and cruel. Shahid-Saless removes all the additives and symbols associated with the body in order to depict it as cold and lifeless on the screen. Shahid-Saless, just like Chekov, suffered from tuberculosis and endured great pressure from his body throughout his life. Thus, the body has a callous and singular presence in his films. His characters are ill, they sell their bodies, they butcher, or constantly strain their bodies. The body suffers and inflicts suffering in return. No filmmaker would understand this better than one who has tuberculosis.

One of the signature methods Shahid-Saless used to depict the materialistic aspect of the body was repetition. The characters usually repeat a task or a movement several times and through that process manifest the materiality of their bodies to the audience. Maurice Blanchot writes, ‘repetition of a word in writing or speaking, dissolves the meaning of that word and reveals its materiality.’ When we repeat someone’s name over and over, the name loses its reference to the owner and becomes nothing but words on a page or obscure manipulation of sounds between the lips. Repetition of an act, elicited the same effect in Shaid-Saless’ cinema. In his work, repeating an act, gradually disintegrates the meaning of that act and reveals the materiality of bodies. The material presence of the body is saturated the most in a scene from “Still Life”, where the old lady tries to pass a thread through the eye of a needle.

The characters of Shahid-Saless choose repetition from a lack of any other choice. In the absence of novelty, when all is said and done, all that remains to say and do is repetitious. That’s why all of Shahid-Saless’ people suffer from a special kind of senescence. Even children seem aged in his films. In an interview, Shahid-Saless claimed that Mohammad Zamani from “A Simple Event” is the old man in “Still Life”. They both live in a different time: a time of catastrophe. A time that refuses to pass and is backed-up like an avalanche that eliminates all possibilities of life from the outset. The opening running sequence in “A Simple Event” portrays this time of catastrophe perfectly. The child runs, but from Shahid-Saless’ lens, there seems to be no forward motion.

The characters of Shahid-Saless have common jobs and usually lose them during the course of the film. Jobs that require minimum skill and are carried out by simple workers. Shahid- Saless has depicted two occupations in his films more than any other during his career: manual-labor and prostitution. Both occupations could distinctly and unequivocally show the capitalist system’s exploitation of bodies and the tragic presence of bodies in the ruthless daily customs of modern life. “Utopia” revolves around 5 prostitutes who are abused and humiliated by the owner of their small brothel. In the sex-scenes of “Utopia”, Shahid-Saless exhibits his absolute dissent towards the rapid materialization of bodies in a capitalist world.

Shahid-Saless was a solitary pessimist. He detested groups and preferred to live alone. So he was considered an outsider in all groups. In parallel, Shahid-Saless never allowed his characters to spend too much time outdoors or in public spaces, and he immediately returned them to closed spaces. The old man and woman of “Still Life” live in a dingy house in a village in northern Iran. The protagonist of “The Diary of a Lover” only leaves his small apartment in case of emergencies. In “Utopia”, the prostitutes are constantly reminded to make sure all doors and windows are closed. The mother in “Changeling” feels threatened by the neighborhood kids playing with his son and tries to keep him in the house. In “Hans: A Young Man from Germany”, the only chance of survival our main characters have is if they stay isolated in a confined area. It’s interesting that even before he left Iran, he already planned on making a film titled “Quarantine”

There’s a scene in “A Simple Event” that could sum-up Shahid-Saless’ view on life and cinema. The village doctor arrives at the young-boy’s house to examine his dying mother. The mother’s lying on the ground, and on top of her is the doctor examining the body. The father is standing next to them, and the boy, slightly further away, is also looking on. There’s no stress or anxiety present in this scene. The boy only readjusts his neck a few times for a better view. After a few minutes, with a cold and inexpressive voice, the doctor announces the patient dead, but to no gasps of regret or remorse from the house. That slight wiggle in the boy’s neck, the distance between him and his parents, that lifeless gaze and the cold, null atmosphere, is a summary of the Shahid-Saless’ disheartened soul.