Unlike her first film, “Persepolis,” which was entirely animation, her new film, “Chicken With Plums,” is chiefly played out with actors, although there are segments of animation
“Chicken With Plums” was adapted from her book of the same by Satrapi and her co-screenplay writer and co-director, Frenchman Vincent Paron-nnaud, with whom she worked on “Persepolis.”
“Chicken With Plums is a 95-minute dark film set in the post-World War II period in Tehran. It is the story of a noted violinist, who pursues a doomed love affair and then loses all interest in living when his favorite violin is damaged. He then goes to bed to await death, which comes after eight days.
Unlike “Persepolis,” this new film relates a purely family story and does not have political overtones. Like Persepolis, it is filmed in French.
Satrapi, 41, said, “It’s a love story without hope—a man ends up dying of love. It’s a nihilistic film because life is nihilistic.”
She said, “If we are looking for a little bit of hope, then we cannot find it in the movie because there is no note of hope in life.… We are all going to die.”
She said she prefers dark stories where the ending is “not so nice.” She explained, “When it’s happy and they get married and they have two children and three dogs and a nice house, it’s not exciting. ‘Romeo and Juliet’ exists because they could not marry and the story persists because they die.”
But she says much of her new movie is actually a celebration of love and art, particularly the protagonist’s passion for a woman he could never have, who is played by Golshifteh Farahani, a young actress who fled Iran when the regime disapproved of her appearing in the Hollywood film, “Syriana.”
Farahani said, “For me, it was … a marvelous dream to be able to work with Marjane. We are both Iranians and we are both in exile. Yes, we lose Iran, but we also have Iran always in our hearts.”
“Chicken With Plums” is one of 23 films in the competition at Venice vying for the festival’s Golden Lion award for best film. It will be released commercially later this year.
The Hollywood Reporter had this to say about Chicken With Plums” in its review last week:
“Humor and imagination lead the viewer through the winding story, which flashes forward and backward amid dream sequences and fantasies. The life of Nasser Ali Khan (Mathieu Amalric), a world-famous violinist so unhappy he decides to die, is narrated by Azrael, the Angel of Death (Edward Baer), a great black-caped figure with very white teeth, who makes his actual appearance appropriately late in the tale.
“The entire film is a search backwards in time for the reason for Nasser Ali’s drastic decision. He blames his wife (Maria De Medeiros) for breaking his prized violin during a quarrel. To find a replacement, he travels with his pestiferous young son up a mountain to reach an antique dealer, who gives them both opium and claims to have Mozart’s own Stradivarius for sale. Not even this magnificent instrument is enough to satisfy what ails Nasser Ali, however, and he takes to his bed, waiting for death to carry him off.
“In the eight days it takes for the Angel to come for him, the violinist relives his life, from his unsuccessful school career, bested by his nose-to-the-grindstone brother, to a loveless marriage to the math teacher Faranguiss (recounted by Maria de Medeiros in a 360° performance) to satisfy his bossy, chain-smoking mother (Isabella Rossellini in a warm cameo).
“He’s not such a hot father either, and the disastrous future of his two small kids is recounted in comic flash-forwards. Chiara Mastroianni is a hoot as the grown-up daughter, who has dedicated herself to smoking, drinking and gambling. His son’s fate in Wyoming is arguably even worse.
“In reality, the crux of the film is supposed to be Nasser Ali’s ill-starred love story with the beautiful Iran (Golshifteh Farahani) when he was a violin student in Shiraz. It detonates too late and too improbably to be very emotionally effective or heart-rending. Still, the metaphor of a girl named Iran who prematurely ages into a sad, gray-haired granny will not be lost on alert viewers. Radiating the joyful, dewy freshness of a latter-day Louise Brooks, Farahani is up to the mythic role Iran is called on to play.
“With his huge eyes and moustache, always feverishly fighting for his privileges, Amal-ric humorously spoofs the egocentric artist who is forced to learn his master’s lesson: great music is not about technique, but about deep feeling. As obvious as it sounds, it’s a lot to believe about a character this comical.”
