MOVIE REVIEW : POETIC ‘DEAD END’ RAISES POLITICAL QUESTIONS

In 1977, arguably the last year of stability for the Shah of Iran’s regime, Tehran was a city in the grip of future shock. The traffic was the world’s worst, the air was polluted and housing was desperately scarce in a city whose population had quadrupled in less than a decade.

But it was a vital, exciting place with much construction under way, a cosmopolitan cultural life and an emerging professional class that was beginning to offer opportunities to women as well as men. Young people did picket at the gates of the university, but it was easy for an American visitor, so used to student demonstrations, never to consider until later that these protesters were quite possibly risking their lives.

This was also the year that Parviz Sayyad’s “Dead End” (at the Monica 4-Plex), which is set in contemporary Tehran but was inspired by a Chekhov short story, was banned in Iran, and not until the film’s jolting, out-of-left-field finish do you understand why this happened. But when you do, you’re left in awe at the courage as well as subtle artistry of Sayyad, who’s best known for last year’s “The Mission,” which was as anti-Khomeini as this film is anti-shah.

At first, no two films made by the same man could seem so different. “Dead End” is as calm and contemplative as “The Mission,” about a young man sent by the Khomeini government to New York to assassinate one of the shah’s former colonels, was jagged and dynamic. Yet so astute a film maker is Sayyad that both works raise implicit political protest beyond partisan views to the level of tragedy.

The talented, darkly beautiful Mary Apick, who in “The Mission” played the colonel’s fiery, outspoken sister-in-law, is this time a dreamy young woman who lives with her loving, apparently widowed mother (Apick Yousefian) in a small but pleasant flat in a cul-de-sac in the old central section of Tehran. Gradually, she realizes that a handsome man (Parviz-Bahador) in his 30s, whom she first saw at a wedding, seems to be following her. The already self-absorbed Apick is thrown into a tizzy. What to do? Should she approach him or not? Why doesn’t he address her directly? She careens between being thrilled to find him popping up alongside her on a bus and feeling contempt for what she interprets as his timidity. She discovers how thin the line can be between happiness and misery.

Sayyad views Apick’s often humorous carryings-on and endless musings with affectionate compassion, and there’s every reason to assume that, along with evoking that sense of isolation we have all experienced, he has in mind only a kind of satiric commentary on the problems of young, educated Iranians coping with the new Western-style freedoms, especially those between men and women. But abruptly, that cul-de-sac where Apick lives takes on symbolic meaning, as do countless other details. (In retrospect we appreciate the irony of Parviz-Bahador inspiring Apick’s purchasing “Citizen Tom Paine” and a number of other Howard Fast books--she initially confuses his name with “Faust.”)

“Dead End” has a poetic beauty and a leisurely (not slow) pace that allows for the utmost subtlety and ambiguity. It is a film that says nothing directly but implies everything about the dark side of existence under the shah. Sayyad, who now makes his home in Los Angeles, as does Apick, says that “Dead End” (Times-rated: mature for adult themes) was the first Iranian film to be shown under Khomeini’s rule but was later banned because its heroine speaks freely about love and is seen in public without a chador (veil). Not surprisingly, “The Mission” has never been seen in Iran.

‘DEAD END’ A New Film Group release. Writer-producer-director Parviz Sayyad. Camera Hooshang Bahrlou. Music Imami. Film editor Emammi. With Mary Apick, Parviz-Bahador, A. Yousefian, B. Zarrinpour. In Farsi, with English subtitles.

Running time: 1 hour, 22 minutes.

Times-rated: Mature.