My
long association with Abbas Kiarostami was a great blessing
for me," said Hassan Yektapanah in an interview with Mohammad
Atebbai in Film International, an informed Iranian cinema
journal. "He not only taught me cinema, but how to look at
the world."
Competing
at Cannes for the Camera d'Or, Yektapanah's first feature,
Djomeh, took a year to complete and was seven
months in post-production. Yektapanah, in other words, is
a perfectionist: he wrote, directed, edited and was the art
director on Djomeh initially titled Relationship,
then changed because it sounded "too professional and commercial".
Born
in 1963, Yektapanah is one of those committed artists who
started his film career at a very young age. First, he was
simply part of a production crew, then he worked his way up
to become first assistant director to Ali Hatami, Tahmineh
Milani, Jafar Panahi (The Mirror), Ebrahim Forouzesh
(The Little Man) and finally Abbas Kiarostami
(The Taste Of Cherry, The Wind Will Carry Us).
After 14 years of observing film production in close-up, Yektapanah
penned a script, honed it to his liking, and handed it to
Kiarostami. He, in turn, liked Djomeh enough
to help him find a producer,
then visited the set during the shooting and eventually managed
to make contact with a French co-producer.
Djomeh is the story of three lonely people.
The young Djomeh (Jalil Nazari) is one of two Afghan
labourers who work on a dairy farm in the remote Iranian countryside
for a middle-aged dairy owner who never married. Each morning,
they accompany the owner to nearby villages to buy milk that,
on the farm, will be turned into dairy products for sale.
During these outings, due to Djomeh's outgoing personality
and desire to strike up conversations, they begin to talk
"about ideas, ideals, society, world views, and philosophy,"
as Yektapanah puts it. "I
made every effort to keep the film realistic," he says. "I
tried to make the camera and acting imperceptible, so that
the dialogue and everything else would be very similar to
ordinary routine life. That's all I can say about
the film."
Djomeh, it should be added, is not only about
the pain of loneliness and the need to talk. When Djomeh
falls in love with Setareh (Mahbobeh Khalili), a local girl,
he turns to the dairy owner Mahmoud (Mahmoud Behraznia)
to serve as chaperone. This is a bold gesture, since Djomeh
is crossing cultural boundaries strict Iranian courtship
customs do not allow for open courtship.
Ron
Holloway
