There is a crack in everything - that’s how the light gets in

Daniel Nelson

How do they do it, these Iranian directors? Again and again, often despite censorship and bans, they produce intelligent, absorbing, humane, moving, witty films. Now Ali Asgari has done it again.

Already a prominent figure in the Iranian film industry with several international awards, his latest offering follows a former doctor, Arash, for a few hours as he visits his sisters, brother (who suggests sex, drugs and alcohol as a cure for morbidity) and mother to tell them that he has decided to take his own life.

He is also confronted by a patient desperate for a pain relief prescription — which Arash should not provide because his medical licence has been revoked for treating wounded and frightened youngsters after their demonstration was attacked by security forces.

Police burst into his surgery even as he was trying to save lives and limbs.

He describes the horror of that incident when challenged by one of his sisters to produce reasons for his decision to give up on life. It’s the only concrete explanation he gives in the film, apart from a general sense of dismay about life in Iran.

The film is simple. So is the dialogue. But it creates a totally credible picture of a competent, open-minded guy who has made up his mind about suicide and is methodically getting on with the job, even as US President Donalkd Trump is about to launch his “precision strike’.

But is he as implacable as he seems? The director offers a slim ray of hope as the film ends in the wake of one of those awkward, silent, troubled dinners which cinema frequently offers up. 

It’s a wonder of Asgari’s film-making that a film about despair and  hopelessness is so life-affirming.