April 5, 2008
"Leila" - a Movie within a movie
Screenshot below.
Iranian married couple - Leila (played wrenchingly by Leila Hatami) and her husband Reza (played by Ali Mosaffa - I love this actor and this performance - and these two are now married in real life) - sit and have dinner one night at home, after learning they cannot have children, and they watch Dr. Zhivago. They do not speak. They sit silently and watch Omar Sharif run through the ice house and smash the window to watch the sleigh disappear. As the scene goes on, slowly, Leila turns to look at Reza. And just as slowly, he turns to look back at her. No words. A marvelous silent scene of private domestic life, a moment of shared grief and loss - the news is new, and disorienting, what will it mean now that they cannot have children ... and how watching a movie can inform and reflect and distort your own experience - either by reiterating what you have and appreciate, or by highlighting what you lack. I loved this wordless scene. You can see Omar Sharif reflected in their glass table, and the expressions on their faces says it all. Up until this moment in the film, they were a pair, giggling, laughing, talking, a real team. Now they are separated, each in their own individual pool of darkness ... with possibly the biggest international Middle Eastern star glimmering up at them bluely from below. Beautiful. You don't need words.
I'll write more about Leila, directed by Dariush Mehrjui, icon and legend of Iranian cinema, later. But I just wanted to get this out now, while it was fresh in my mind.