Saturday, March 9, 2013

Rhino Season (2012) (فصل كرگدن)

Director: Bahman Ghobadi. Cast: Behrouz Vossoughi, Monica Bellucci, Yilmaz Erdogan. 88 min. Iran/Turkey. Drama.

A political prisoner is held captive by the Iranian government for 30 years, while his wife is told he's dead and she weeps on an empty grave. Supposedly based on a true story, but so heavily dramatized/fictionalized and adapted (i.e. ripped off) from The House of Spirits (1993), Incendies (2010) and most prominently, Oldboy (2003), any chance of an audience effect backfires, and nearly becomes a disservice to the real political prisoners. Appointing starring roles to an old Iranian superstar (Vossoughi) and a non-Iranian actress hugely popular among Iranians (Bellucci), proves Rhino Season is more a show than a statement.

Trivia: Interestingly, this movie was produced by Scorsese. Sadly, the director has done much better before, such as this film.

Mo says:

No comments:

Post a Comment