{"id":15283,"date":"2011-06-19T22:29:21","date_gmt":"2011-06-20T06:29:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/?p=15283"},"modified":"2011-06-19T22:29:21","modified_gmt":"2011-06-20T06:29:21","slug":"please-do-not-disturb-mohsen-abdolvahab-2010-iran","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/?p=15283","title":{"rendered":"Please Do Not Disturb (Mohsen Abdolvahab, 2010): Iran"},"content":{"rendered":"

Reviewed by Richard Feilden<\/a>. \u00a0Viewed at the Los Angeles Film Festival 2011<\/p>\n

\"Please<\/a><\/p>\n

So my experience with the LA Film Festival for 2011 begins with a scratchy piece of Iranian celluloid.\u00a0 Writer\/director Mohsen Abdolvahab\u2019s Please Do Not Disturb<\/a> gives us a comedic glimpse into the lives of three groups of Tehran\u2019s inhabitants, their stories handing off from one to another like a baton pass in a relay.\u00a0 As we follow them across the city, we get to laugh, and despair, at their very human failings.<\/p>\n

The first of the narrative threads concerns a young newly-wed couple.\u00a0 The husband, an ex-journalist now debasing himself as the host of a religious game show, has just beaten his wife.\u00a0 The second chapter follows a pious man who has moved from the countryside to work as a notary and has just has his wallet, phone and important documents stolen on the train to work.\u00a0 The final part reveals the claustrophobic existence of an elderly couple, isolated from the world by mental decrepitude and fear.<\/p>\n

If that doesn\u2019t sound like a recipe for laughs then you\u2019d be right!\u00a0 Not many comedies begin with a woman attempting to escape her own home by threatening to scream the place down if the man who has just assaulted her doesn\u2019t let her leave.\u00a0 Yet Abdolvahab manages to milk them for all their politically incorrect worth.\u00a0 From each scene\u2019s unsettling start, he lulls you into accepting the comedy of the situation.\u00a0 You may feel uncomfortable laughing as a man, coming across like a perverse cat-food advert, tries to explain to his wife that eight-out-of-ten husbands beat their wives, or feel guilty chuckling as a senile old gent waves an ancient flint-lock pistol at a suspicious TV repairman, but you will.\u00a0 What lifts the film clear of exploitation is that it eventually turns on you.\u00a0 Each scene rounds off with a moment that brings home the failings of these people.\u00a0 Each person misses a chance to be the best that he or she could be, whether through fear, cowardice, or simple laziness.\u00a0 It bites you on the ass with just enough harsh reality to balance the scales.\u00a0 It\u2019s the very definition of bitter-sweet.<\/p>\n

The film focuses on the content of the individual stories, giving room for the characters to breathe, rather than self-congratulatory narrative gymnastics of a heavily interwoven film like 2004\u2019s Crash<\/a>, and it is much the better for it.\u00a0 The stories are simple and self contained, perfectly believable with enough outlandishness to keep you enthralled.\u00a0 This simplicity carries over to the film\u2019s look as well.\u00a0 The sets are simple and few in number, the camera either stationary or hand-held.\u00a0 Even the acting is generally subdued and, particularly from the leads in the first and last stories, excellent.\u00a0 If you get the opportunity to watch it, I can\u2019t recommend this film enough.\u00a0 The perfect start to the festival.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Reviewed by Richard Feilden. \u00a0Viewed at the Los Angeles Film Festival 2011 So my experience with the LA Film Festival for 2011 begins with a scratchy piece of Iranian celluloid.\u00a0 Writer\/director Mohsen Abdolvahab\u2019s Please Do Not Disturb gives us a comedic glimpse into the lives of three groups of Tehran\u2019s inhabitants, their stories handing off […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,179],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-15283","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-films","category-los-angeles-film-festival-2011"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15283","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=15283"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15283\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=15283"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=15283"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=15283"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}