Ashkan, The Charmed Ring And Other Stories (Shahram Mokri, 2009): Iran

Reviewed by Rowan-George Smith. Viewed at the Arlington Theatre, Santa Barbara Film Festival.

For ninety minutes, make sure you have your glasses on hand, contacts lens intact and you’re totally focused and alert, it’s just a suggestion…you don’t want to miss a thing in the Iranian film, Ashkan, The Charmed Ring and Other Stories.  This unusual and stylized black and white film, directed by Shahram Mokri, (this film marked his directorial debut feature), is hard to follow, complicated, weird, and annoying at times.  It’s almost too clever, yet the film is engaging from the start.  The random stories and characters quickly entice the viewer to go along in this odd journey that is full of intrigue and surprises.

Two blind men plot a robbery. Ashkan, a young man attempts to commit suicide several times.  A frustrated sculptor wants to relocate.  Two reform murderers convert and are now nice guys.  A policeman is infatuated with a shop clerk and a movie star bewitches his sidekick.  The story comes full circle from the beginning to end, with the aid of two additional major players, a strange fish and a charmed ring.

This inventive story is an accumulation of a set of incidents and how the characters connect with each other in a ‘six degree of separation’ sort of way that shows how ones actions affect one another.  Immediately, the film jumps right in, so don’t expect any back-story of the characters, it’s all about what’s happening in the present.  The subplots are magically entwined in an inconsistent yet carefully calculating manner and, it’s definitely an interesting and fresh approach in storytelling.

In the beginning, as the story begun to unfold, the actor who played one of the two blind men, the bald one, his portrayal of the character felt insulting and obnoxious.  There was a sense of arrogance in his depiction that was very off-putting.  An inviting and honest performance came from the actor who played, Ashkan, the young man who makes several attempts to kill himself.  I found myself more interested in Ashkan’s story and the complexity of this character would have made for a real compelling story alone.  For me, there was a real fascination to learn much more about Ashkan, and the sensitive performance given by the young actor only added more interest, intrigue, and investment to this character and his back-story.  Another performance worthy of an honorable mention is the eccentric pairing of the policeman who is smitten with the shop clerk, and his sidekick who is enchanted with a movie star.  These two actors had brilliant chemistry in their scenes together, and they successfully achieved the comedic timing that translated over the subtitles.

The fun and quirky background score, the acting performances from select actors, the dry humor that at times did translate effectively, and the non-conformist direction by Mokri, made Askan, The Charmed Ring and Other Stories, memorably stand-out for it’s uniqueness in storytelling.  This unusual stylized film does work, yet it felt too clever and forced at times.