A Man of Integrity (Mohammad Rasoulot, 2017): English I Persian

Reviewed by Hayden Schoenfelder. Viewed at AFI fest in Hollywood.

Reza Akhlaghirad, the male protagonist in the film, A Man of Integrity, plays a great role as a goldfish farmer in Iran. He’s immediately tormented by the police in the start of the film. Looking for contraband, they end up taking his long rifle introducing the audience to the way that Reza is treated and the hardships he faces. He also got away with hiding some sort of alcohol inside of watermelons, without the men from the temple finding the hidden door. In addition, there is a secret water pool in the rocks near Reza’s house, where he goes to think, and tries to find answers to his questions. There are also moments of foreshadowing to upcoming scenes in this peaceful place.

The costumes and makeup designs were very accurate to the people living in this area. Which put you in the scenes with the characters, making it realistic and helped the audience get a good understanding of what the lives were like for these people. Also, watching the film in subtitles while trying to make sense of the Persian was really interesting to comprehend.

What I received from this film was a man who never stopped trying to reach his goals in life without cheating and taking part in awful actions to get what he wants. Reza was a man of fairness and truth so he had trouble living in a society where everyone else seemed to play dirty to get what they wanted. Towards the end there was a very large shift once Reza finally gave in and ended up murdering the power heavy leader, who was harming him and his family’s well being. After this, he was offered multiple prestigious jobs because of his successful murder even including the job of the man he killed. Intertwining its way into the title of this film integrity is one of the largest concepts that Reza struggles with. You can really see his grapple over this topic especially at the very end of the movie as he is in the water cave trying to figure out what decisions to make as he’s looking at his own reflection in the water and looking at his true character.

They must have used drones for cinematography since there were some amazing shots of really high in the air looking down on the village where Reza lived. Also where his wife worked as the head teacher at the school in the town they lived in, had some interesting viewpoints as well. I enjoyed watching this film progress and thought it was one of the better meaningful films at AFI Fest.