‘Water, Wind, Dust’: Stunning Elements From Iran

The UCLA Film Archives’ “A Decade of Iranian Cinema” continues Tuesday at 8 p.m. at Melnitz Theater with Amir Naderi’s stunning “Water, Wind, Dust.” Until this series and the current run of “The Tenants” the only post-revolutionary Iranian movie to play locally was Naderi’s equally remarkable and thematically similar “The Runner.”

This 1985 production depicts drought with a terrible beauty. Amid stark desert landscapes in southern Iran we see household utensils abandoned by people who have moved on in search of water holes that have not yet run dry. On this bleak horizon the camera picks up a young boy returning to his family’s encampment only to find that they have been forced to move on. He is played by the resilient and appealing Majid Niroumand, the gifted star of “The Runner.” Very quickly our concern for him in finding his family gives way to the fear that he may not survive.

As relentless as the film is with its incessant, howling windstorms, it is also contemplative, a consideration of nature as hostile, and contrasting the traditional Persian hospitality accorded the boy by an old man with a truck driver who not only doesn’t even offer him a ride but also splashes the hood of his truck with incredibly precious water. In fact, since the boy and other emigrants from the area dress in the old nomadic style, the truck is one of the handful of reminders that the picture is actually taking place in the present.

Naderi, now in exile in New York, manages to make compelling a simple and increasingly grim story through his command of imagery and the subtle, perceptive quality of his observations--indeed, the boy, in his determination, can be taken as a figure in a contemporary Third World allegory. The ending is abrupt and upbeat; however, there’s always the possibility the final sequence is only a mirage.

On Thursday at 7:30 p.m., the Archive, in association with the Independent Feature Project/West, will present Nietzchka Keene’s “The Juniper Tree” (1989), an adaptation of a Grimm fairy tale filmed in English in Iceland and set in the late Middle Ages. This is most impressive for a debut feature, a period fable shot in a beautifully modulated black and white.

The essential story is timeless, involving a young boy’s resistance to his new stepmother, but involving elements of the supernatural that suggest how ritual and belief are necessary to give meaning to existence--even if to us they smack of superstition. You may not be surprised to learn that this is a first film, for it is very, very solemn. (Why is it that so many filmmakers feel that when they’re dealing with a medieval subject their people have to behave with the formality of a Gregorian chant?). Even so, the film is distinctive, ambitious and genuinely poetic. Preceding “The Juniper Tree” at 5:30 in Melnitz is “The Third Degree” (1926), Michael Curtiz’s first picture for Warners, a circus picture that has been compared in style to E.A. Dupont’s “Variety” and stars Dolores Costello. For UCLA film programs information: (213) 206-8013, 206-FILM.

The Oscar-winning art direction for “Batman” owes its inspiration to Fritz Lang’s “Metropolis” (1926), which also screens Thursday, at 8 p.m. at LACMA as part of its “Amerikanism: Films from Weimar Germany 1919-1933.” Most decidedly this landmark silent shows an American influence, for its famous city-state is inspired by Manhattan and its skyscrapers. Be warned that the museum is showing the version restored by composer Giorgio Moroder, which means that it looks great in all its tinted Art Deco splendor but sounds awful, thanks to Moroder’s predominantly disco beat.

Why not turn off the sound and let it be accompanied live by an adaptation for piano or organ of the original Gustav Huppertz score for full orchestra? After all, a museum is supposed to be dedicated to preservation, not desecration. In any case, most film buffs are familiar with this vision of the future in which Lang and his writer-wife Thea von Harbou suggest that only the heart can serve as the mediator between the Mind (Capital) and the Hands (Labor) in a society composed of Big Brother-like captains of industry and serfs, the middle classes apparently--and prophetically--having been crushed to death. For full schedule: (213) 857-6010.