MOVIE REVIEW : A Highly Charged ‘Time’ From the Genre of the ‘40s

Most of the few Iranian films that surface in the United States periodically are highly personal and often deeply political works that have received international recognition. By contrast, veteran director Bahram Beyzaie’s “Perhaps Some Other Time” (at the Monica 4-Plex) is a genre film, a sleekly photographed, portentously scored ‘40s/’50s-style melodrama of psychological suspense with lots of familiar elements. It’s repetitive and overlong yet highly ambitious as it strains for effects that turn out arty rather than profound. Even so, its emotional turmoil churns up sufficient entertainment for fans of Iranian films, although this picture is not the best introduction to them.

The best reason for seeing the film is its remarkable star Sussan Taslimi, a dark beauty who displayed the volcanic presence of an Anna Magnani in Beyzaie’s splendid “Bashu, the Little Stranger.” This time, however, she keeps her fires banked (most of the time) as a Tehran housewife whose husband (Daryush Farhang) suspects her of infidelity.

The husband, who works as a narrator for TV documentaries, is looking at some rushes of a program on the stress and pollution caused by Tehran’s notorious traffic jams when he recognizes his wife in a car with a man he does not know. Instantly consumed with jealousy, he commences playing private investigator while badgering his wife until she thinks she’s losing her mind, like Ingrid Bergman in “Gaslight.” There clearly is something eating away at the wife, who’s always making furtive phone calls, but we suspect that it has nothing to do with infidelity--or her concern for her aged, ailing parents.

It’s always risky to read in special meanings in foreign films whose English subtitles are awkward at best. Therefore, it’s hard to say whether Beyzaie is making a commentary on the status of Iranian women, forced to return to the chador after the fall of the Shah. Certainly, this wife can’t trust her husband to understand what’s bothering her so badly, and it says something about him that he automatically suspects the worse of his dutiful, traditional spouse when he sees her with a strange man in what, after all, is not necessarily a compromising situation. Worse yet, he has a hard time bringing himself to ask her directly about it.

Farhang is stuck in a dogged, largely thankless part, but it’s a pleasure to watch Taslimi express the whole gamut of emotions with little recourse to words--the wife is so uptight she’s barely articulate. As it turns out, Taslimi’s role is much like the emotional tour de forces suffered by Joan Crawford and Bette Davis heroines. Ironically, the harder “Perhaps Some Other Time” (Times-rated Mature for adult themes) strives to seem on the cutting edge of visual razzle-dazzle with lots of flashy editing, the more old-fashioned it really seems.

‘Perhaps Some Other Time’

(‘Shayad Vaghti Digar’)

Sussan Taslimi: Kian Modabber

Daryush Farhang: Rahmati Modabber

Ali-Reza Mojallal: Mr. Hagh-neggar

Sirus Nasiri: Vejdani

A Mahtab Co. presentation of a Novin Film production. Writer-director-editor Bahram Beyzaie. Producers Mohammad-Ali Farajollahi, Hushang Nurollahi, Reza Alipur Motealem, Asad Delshad Ershadi. Executive producer Iraj Sarbaz. Cinematographer Asghar Rafi’i-Jam. Music Babak Bayat. Costumes and art direction Iraj Raminfar. Sound Fereidum Khoshabafard. In Farsi, with English subtitles. Running time: 2 hours.

Times-rated Mature (for adult themes, complex structure).