Taree Film Society screens Subtraction
Event description
Taree Film Society
at the Beryl Jane Flett Studio
Manning Entertainment Centre
Subtraction
2022, Iran, 108 min, M
Doors open 6.30 pm for 7pm screening
When Farzaneh (Taraneh Alidoosti) spots a man on a city bus who looks an awful lot like her husband, Jalal (Navid Mohammadzadeh), she follows him to an unfamiliar building. There, she sees the residents greet him as if they know him and watches from the street as he enters an apartment to meet with another woman.
Three months pregnant and barely present in her job as a driving instructor, Farzaneh is convinced she’s caught Jalal in an affair. When they discuss it, he’s adamant about his alibi, reminding her that he was miles away at the time. Farzaneh begins to fall apart, but she swears she saw him, and, unable to let go, she continues to pull on the thread before making an unsettling discovery about the man on the bus.
With this latest feature, director Mani Haghighi adopts an inky-black aesthetic for a psychological thriller about characters who are confronted by their crueller selves in a city perpetually battered by rain. Accompanied by a tense score and a cinematographic hand that isn’t afraid to turn off the lights, Subtraction embroils us in its enigma. It’s all brought together by the two internationally renowned Iranian actors at the centre — Alidoosti (The Salesman) and Mohammadzadeh (who was recognized with multiple awards for his work in No Date, No Signature). They give startling performances that charm and chastise in equal measure. To say any more would be to spoil the impossible mystery waiting in the dark.
Living in a theocracy splits you in two. You must become two people to survive. A
private life, and a public mask. The split seeps into the narrowest crevices of your
life, and your every cell produces a simulacrum of itself: a copy that looks just like
you. You produce this copy to protect yourself from the brutality around you, but
it can turn against you and destroy you. I wanted to make a film about the atmosphere of Tehran: Not
the explicitly political film that tackles issues head-on, but a film about the mood
of this city, how it feels for us to live here, all of us, together with our doubles...
Casual tickets are $18: book above on this webpage (or head to the Manning Entertainment Centre website or at the door).
Taree Film Society’s screen and sound installation is proudly funded by the NSW Government.
