Downpour (Bayzai, 1971): Barbican Cinema, 3pm
This film is part of the ‘Other Modernisms’ season at the Barbican. Full details here.
A young teacher is sent to a school in the impoverished south-end of Tehran where he falls in love with his student's elder sister, and directs all his energy into helping the students put on a stage show. Moving, witty and brilliantly directed in a dazzling and unusual combination of neorealism and political symbolism. In the late 1960s, Iranian audiences and filmmakers were hungry for an alternative to Hollywood imports and Iran’s own home-grown commercial genre cinema. With its contemporary, true-to-life subject, working-class protagonists, veiled social critique, and combined native and Western expressive styles, Downpour is typical of the new counter-cinema that emerged.
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