Immortal, running for the Suvarna Chakoram at IFFK is featured in the competition section. The film is a wide frame of despondency with heavy streaks of agonizing ache. One can make this a pictorial film instead of a moving picture. The camera doesn’t pan at all from start to finish, only the characters move. Frames stand still as though they represent time in the movie.
Through the first 45 minutes of the film, we are shown a withered, disturbed old man, Ayaz, trying to get out of the four walls of his house despite being a paralytic from waist down. He painstakingly drags himself out of his house religiously every morning in a bid to kill himself. Ayaz’s endeavours are cut short by his grandson, who drags him back home.
Ayaz doesn’t seem to have anyone else; the son who appeared in the first scene leaves him with his nephew and goes away. And the old man isn’t helping either; he ruefully clings to his past, with his grandson oscillating between feeling sorry for his grandpa and being irate over his tantrums.
The story takes us through the dry lands of Iran with earthy colours spattered over the frames. Director Hadi Mohaghegh has opted for a raw, bare narrative, where even the parched land seem to stand dismissive of a hopeful tomorrow.
Ayaz’s everyday life has moments that make one recoil in stunned silence and watch embittered lives living their misery out. Love is a trauma he mixes with guilt and tucks away in his past, not letting it evade his life in the present. He easily feels for the family he lost, but not the family that survived, keeping him alive. The narrative isn’t verbal and is largely silent. For those that do not mind being put through long hours of affliction, who identify with the dejection suffered by the man, even in lesser degrees, Immortal is a find. For others, keep looking out for greener pastures. (Literally too).
Star factor: Tangible realism that sparks through the frames
The protagonist, Yadolah Shadmani as Ayaz, who drastically changed appearance overcoming body images, comes across as a stellar performer.