Manuscripts Dont Burn (Mohammed Rasoulof, 2013): Iran

Reviewed by Lisa Walters. Viewed at AFI Film Festival 2013.

Manuscripts Don’t Burn , made in Iran by Mohommad Rasoulof, is not for the weak. I found this movie disturbing, compelling, and intriguing at the same time. The film starts with close-up camera shots  of an assassin. We don’t know he’s an assassin at first, we see him showering, trying desperately to help his sick little boy, and worrying about finances, just as anyone would. We soon realize, as Khosrow, our man in the shower, meets up with his stoic and determined partner, Morteza, that these two aren’t going to Home Depot. They are assigned thugs, sent to interrogate and execute Kesra, a novelist who has reportedly written a manuscript outlining the “accidental” coach crash that contained other writers of the forbidden. This is unacceptable to the assassins, who claim to be in it for the cause as well as the money. As they drive to Kesra’s comfortable fortress, we are led to be even more sympathetic to the assassins.  From the start, it is compelling to watch the almost neurotic Khosrow, as he fusses over his little boy’s hospital stay, argues with his wife on the phone (“Everything I do, I do to please God!”) and calls to check if his paycheck has been deposited.  But when push comes to shove, the less-emotional Morteza takes over the morbid duties they bear, “taking care of” a witness in the woods, and handling that passenger, bound and gagged, who’s been in the trunk the whole time.

For me, the most sympathetic character was a poet, a man who who supports Kesra, the doomed novelist, in the way you would support a sick grandfather. I began to despise the assassins  even after I sympathized with them at first, when I saw the barbaric treatment of the poet. And so it goes in Manuscripts Don’t Burn, a methodical, mysterious journey through a dark world. You don’t know who to feel worse for, but you know that no one will win. None of the actors names are listed anywhere, and the making of this film was apparently so secret that at one point it was titled “Anonymous.” Rasoulof boldly portrays a situation that is reportedly based in truth, with compassion and empathy for the killers who complete the sad circle of life in a place like Iran.