Underground political workers, subversive figures all have occupied the centre of the narrative in powerful political films that have come out of Iran over the years. But in Terrestrial Verses, directed by Alireza Khatami and Ali Asgari, being screened in the world cinema category at the 28th International Film Festival of Kerala (IFFK), what we get to see are ordinary people who are facing the heat of the repressive regime in various ways in their mundane daily activities.
A handful of short sequences of people of varying ages speaking to an authority figure, not seen on screen, make up the film. But that description does not even remotely convey the potent power of this work. None of the people we see are making loud political slogans. For that matter, even a filmmaker who is shown speaking to a particularly irritating censoring officer, is not making a political film, but a family drama based on the violence that he has seen within his family. But, even that does not get past the censor.
One of the standout sequences is that of a young girl in colourful clothing, dancing to upbeat tunes, being asked to try out a loose colourless clothing and headscarf for her school. The girl, who doesn’t give in easily, in the end dejectedly says that she can see only her eyes, when asked to look at a mirror. Another man has a harrowing time with an authority figure for not having an Islamic name for his son.
