The Wasteland
- This is a past program
Part of the UCLA Film & Television Archive’s Celebration of Iranian Cinema screening series. Register at cinema.ucla.edu to attend this in-theater screening.
Iran, 2020
With its rich black-and-white photography, rural, seemingly pre-industrial setting, long tracking shots and overriding sense of collapse, dispersal, and doom, writer-director Ahmad Bahrami’s The Wasteland displays the unmistakable influence of Hungarian art house legend Béla Tarr. Bahrami’s command of these elements, however, is entirely his own.
When the owner of a brick factory announces its imminent closure to the families who work there, it's the beginning of the end for a whole way of life as many of them have labored there for generations. Bahrami structures the film as a series of returns to the owner’s announcement, each time from the perspective of a different worker. Leaving chronology vague, he reveals the long suppressed secrets and resentments—often deliberately stoked by the patriarchal owner—that have simmered among the ethnically diverse community for years. Brilliantly balancing suspense and revelation, he builds to an ineluctable and devastating finale. Winner of the FIPRESCI Award for Best Film at the 77th Venice International Film Festival, The Wasteland marks an astonishing feature debut.
(2020, dir. Ahmad Bahrami, DCP, b&w, in Persian with English subtitles, 103 min.)