From the mind of Iranian Writer/Filmmaker Saeid Keshavarz comes this whodunnit that sees the skeletons in the closet come crashing out for a group of seemingly innocuous village folk in conservative Iran. The director has been a darling of the film-fest circuit since debuting his first short film, “Dragon's Tail” (2019) at the 24th edition of the Busan Film Festival and winning Best Asian Short Film at the same event.
Towards the Night is screening at Short Shorts Film Festival and Asia
A lady peeks into the emptiness as she opens the door of yet another mortuary freezer. Nope. Her cousin Maryam's corpse was nowhere to be found. The forensic pathologist then finds out that her cousin was not only pregnant at the time of her death but also allegedly took her own life by ingesting ‘rice pills' (aluminium phosphide). This startling discovery leads Leila (Mahdieh Nasaj) to travel to her hometown to shed light on the truth as despair clungs in the air, in a tense and twisted thriller that holds a mind-numbing twist.
First and foremost, the direction of this short film is exquisite, with Saeid making the most out of dark inky hues and wardrobe, coupled with melancholic sound production of shrieks and wails to create a sad little story of familial discord that evokes plenty of depressive sentiments. The flow of the picture is at breakneck speed, as dialogues go, and understanding the context of the narrative takes a little effort as the events unfold over a short period of time.
Mahdieh Nasaj is fire on screen and her turn as the village sleuth is absorbing and deepens the emotional depth of the film and its morose subjects. As usual, Iranian cinema tends to explore slices of life thrown with random curveballs. And “Towards the Night” does the same, this time getting into the taboo nature of infidelity and revenge. In Leila's childhood village, a human life is a mere plaything and pride is the impetus that drives the villagers to snuff it.
In only 23 short minutes, “Towards the Night” manages to pack a punch in storytelling, with substance that will leave you gasping leading to its revelatory third act. As the protagonist slowly discovers that her entire life was a lie, the sinking feeling too begins to loom in the recesses of our hearts and minds, that not everything is as clear as day as soon as we begin to retire towards the night.
