The Pot and the Oak

The life of an Iranian theatre persona collapses when he discovers he is sterile. This is the beginning of a virtuosic film dealing with damaged masculinity, its poisonous effect on marriage, and the inability to contain the shame of failure that could lead to madness. In his first feature film, Kiarash Anvari employs an innovative cinematic apparatus to tell his story, creating a powerful analogy between image and theme: perplexed characters are exposed in a sequence of unconventional reflections, static shot compositions taken from the world of painting create an illusion of time slowed down, and the creative deployment of theatre sets ingeniously reveals the boundaries between reality and image - all of which are enhanced by affectively subtle acting.