{"id":7511,"date":"2010-02-18T23:47:29","date_gmt":"2010-02-19T07:47:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/?p=7511"},"modified":"2010-02-19T07:00:58","modified_gmt":"2010-02-19T15:00:58","slug":"ashkan-the-charmed-ring-and-other-stories-shahram-mokri-2009-iran","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/?p=7511","title":{"rendered":"Ashkan, The Charmed Ring And Other Stories (Shahram Mokri, 2009): Iran"},"content":{"rendered":"

Reviewed by Rowan-George Smith<\/a>. Viewed at the Arlington Theatre, Santa Barbara Film Festival.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>For ninety minutes, make sure you have your glasses on hand, contacts lens intact and you\u2019re totally focused and alert, it\u2019s just a suggestion\u2026you don\u2019t want to miss a thing in the Iranian film, Ashkan, The Charmed Ring and Other Stories.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 It\u2019s almost too clever, yet the film is engaging from the start.\u00a0 The random stories and characters quickly entice the viewer to go along in this odd journey that is full of intrigue\u00a0and surprises.<\/p>\n

Two blind men plot a robbery. Ashkan, a young man attempts to commit suicide several times.\u00a0 A frustrated sculptor wants to relocate.\u00a0 Two reform murderers convert and are now nice guys.\u00a0 A policeman is infatuated with a shop clerk and a movie star bewitches his sidekick.\u00a0 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.<\/p>\n

This inventive story is an accumulation of a set of incidents and how the characters connect with each other in a \u2018six degree of separation\u2019 sort of way that shows how ones actions affect one another.\u00a0 Immediately, the film jumps right in, so don\u2019t expect any back-story of the characters, it\u2019s all about what\u2019s happening in the present.\u00a0 The subplots are magically entwined in an inconsistent yet carefully calculating manner and, it\u2019s definitely an interesting and fresh approach in storytelling.<\/p>\n

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.\u00a0 There was a sense of arrogance in his depiction that was very off-putting.\u00a0 An inviting and honest performance came from the actor who played, Ashkan, the young man who makes several attempts to kill himself.\u00a0 I found myself more interested in Ashkan\u2019s story and the complexity of this character would have made for a real compelling story alone.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 These two actors had brilliant chemistry in their scenes together, and they successfully achieved the comedic timing that translated over the subtitles.<\/p>\n

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\u2019s uniqueness in storytelling.\u00a0 This unusual stylized film does work, yet it felt too clever and forced at times.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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\u2019re totally focused and alert, it\u2019s just a suggestion\u2026you don\u2019t want to miss a thing in the Iranian film, Ashkan, The Charmed Ring and Other Stories.\u00a0 This […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":805,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,131],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7511","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-films","category-santa-barbara-film-festival-2010"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7511","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\/805"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=7511"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7511\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7511"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7511"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7511"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}