Ab, bad, khak
Iran,
1989, 74 min
Shown in 1990
CREDITS
- dir
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Amir Naderi
- scr
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Amir Naderi
- cam
-
Reza Pakzad
- editor
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Amir Naderi
- cast
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Majid Nirumand
- source
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Farabi Cinema Foundation, #55 SI-E TIR Ave., Tehran 11358, Iran, TLX: 214283
-
COMMENTS
Amir Naderi attended the screening. An interesting note: Actor Madjid Niroumand had fled Iran for political reasons. The SFIFF went to great lengths to get him a visa so he could attend the showing, but it was denied.
OTHER
Color has drained from the vast landscape, leaving behind an almost monochromatic scheme of greys and browns. The land is parched and cracked. Animals are dying. Abandoned villagers lie half-buried like archeological ruins. Furious swirls of sand buffet small bands of travelers guiding families and herds across the desert. It is the drought which brings Water, Wind, Sand's young protagonist home to his village only to find a ghost town. Alone, he sets out, intent on finding his people or some relief from the calamity engulfing him. As in The Runner (SFIFF 1987), Iran's Amir Naderi once again explores the texture of extreme adversity by filtering it through the experiences of a child. For this most difficult role, he has cast Majid Nirumand, the young star of The Runner. Shot in medium- and long-shot in the midst of unrelenting storms, Water, Wind, Sand possesses a startlingly visceral, often brutal edge. The hyper-realism of Naderi's environmental mise-en-scène heightens the empathetic impact of the boy's exhausting ordeal. And when he telescopes his expansive frame to embrace a detail—a baby, a goldfish, the surreal climax—the film shifts to the plane of the ineffable. Shot in 1985, banned when Naderi defected to the U.S., and only edited last year, Water, Wind, Sand shared top honors at Nantes.
—Laura Thielen
FACTOID #384
Henry Fonda attended the SFIFF in 1967 to receive a tribute for his work in classics like The Grapes of Wrath and 12 Angry Men. Daughter Jane showed up in 1975 for a tribute of her own. And her brother Peter made two Festival appearances, one as a guest in 1963 and another to accompany the film Nadja (in which he gleefully portrayed Dr. Van Helsing) in 1995.
