The story opens in Balochistan, in a small, scarcely ‘wired’ village bordering Iran and Afghanistan. Ahmad is an idealistic teacher in exile, educating the local community; his partner Haseeba, however, has spent time in jail in Tehran for the very same offence against the State. The disaccord between them is not only social but also personal. Ahmad's destiny collides with that of a family fleeing the Taliban; soon the intricate divisions of age and gender within that group will trigger other problems and entanglements – including a 'lovers on the run' intrigue that fleetingly recalls Murnau's classic Tabu (1931).
Across all the arresting, shifting peripeteia of its plot, Abbas Amini's film deftly dramatises the complicated question of commitment: do we commit ourselves to a political cause, a set of religious beliefs, or a person? And how do we negotiate the commitments of others, even those closest to us, when they are based on a very different value system?
With its sparse music score, densely naturalistic acting and unostentatious camera work, Endless Borders is almost a minimalistic suspense thriller (with Hitchcockian overtones), combined with a heated family melodrama – but it never loses sight of the serious and extremely timely issues that it raises.
源自:https://iffr.com/en/iffr/2023/films/endless-borders
Set at the start of Covid, Family Portrait follows a family on an idle but hectic morning when they have planned a group picture. When the mother vanishes and one daughter becomes desperate to find her and gather her sprawling family, the film progressively descends into a realm where time and space lose their grip, transforming the family portrait into a solemn and enigmatic ritual of transition.
Director's Note:
Family photographs, according to Roland Barthes, are a desperate means to freeze time and immortalize the family. However, what the family doesn’t realize yet is that, as they smile and pose for the picture, they have already died.
源自:https://www.locarnofestival.ch/festival/program/film.html?fid=e3a878c3-ae17-4570-9736-2c37b917128a