Alissa Simon Film CriticSet in 1978, in a Kurdish village high in the mountains, Iranian horror entry “Zalava” pits rational, scientific beliefs against superstition and groupthink, a theme that carries a lot of resonance just now.
At the same time, it sports a sly sense of humor before edging into tragedy. Marking a confident, cinema-literate feature debut for helmer and co-writer Arsalan Amiri, a member of the Iranian Kurdish minority, the film puts a new spin on genre conventions.
But perhaps its biggest asset is the performance of tall, toned and impressively mustached star Navid Pourfaraj as the sergeant of a nearby gendarmerie, whose attempts to lay down the law with the trigger-happy residents of Zalava result in unintended.
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