‘Terrestrial Verses’ Review: A Series of Striking Snapshots of Everyday Oppression in Iran
variety.comJessica Kiang A locked-off camera can convey many things — watchfulness, stealthiness, clinical remove or elegant restraint — but seldom is it as evocatively accusatory as in Alireza Khatami and Ali Asgari’s “Terrestrial Verses.” Here, its use over a series of stationary vignettes, bookended by dramatic images of urban collapse, becomes an increasingly inspired choice even as the themes start to repeat and the resonances with the ongoing Women Life Freedom movement in Iran become more apparent.
Putting the viewer in the uncomfortable position of interviewer/interrogator in nine encounters between everyday Iranians and some manner of authority figure, this is punchy first-person filmmaking, from the point of view of the last person you want to be.
Some of the stories are mildly comedic in tone, especially early on. In the first of cinematographer Adib Sobhani’s crisp, boxed-in 4:3 compositions, we are introduced to a father (Bahram Ark) being chastised for not choosing a sufficiently Islamic name for his newborn son.
The scene then switches to a little girl (Arghavan Sabani) barely tolerating a cajoling, hectoring saleswoman’s patter as she’s fitted for her school uniform: a child-sized abaya and veil, which swallows up her Mickey Mouse T-shirt and sparkly pink headphones.
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