من سینمای "شهرام مکری" رو با "ماهی و گربه" شناختم و تقریبا با نحوه فیلمسازیش آشنا شدم و قبل اینکه "هجوم" رو ببینم میدونستم خودم رو باید برای چه اثری آماده کنم. سینمای هنر و تجربه در جریان الان سینمای ایران که هر لودگی اسمش طنز شده و با سرعت حداقل 10 فیلم در سال اگه بشه نامش رو اثر سینمایی گذاشت، اثر سینمایی منتشر میشه، لازمه. من معتقدم پتانسیل ساخته شدن یک محصول ارزشمند در قالب سینمای هنر و تجربه ایران بالاست واسه همین هم مشتاقانه دنبالش میکنم. "هجوم" مرموزانه با فضاسازی تاریکی که در خودش حمل میکنه و نحوه فیلم برداری جالب توجهش شروع میشه، همینطور که میگذره ایده ای که کارگردان در سرش داشته قابل لمس تر…

بر خلافِ "ماهى و گربه"، مُكرى در فيلمِ جديدش تا سعی داشته تا از داستانک ها، كاراكترها و صحنه‌ هاى بيهوده پرهيز كند. او اينبار به موازاتِ فضاى جنون آفرين و وهم آلود، و روايتِ دايره وارى كه منطبق بر آن پيش مى برد، دست روى سوژهٔ جالب و درخور توجهی نهاده؛ در بابِ سيستمى كه اعضايش را در يك سيرِ دوار و عبث گرفتار ساخته، و تقلاى هر فرد براى رهايى از آن، و نتيجه نداشتنِ تلاش ها و از نفس افتادن ها، مسببِ پيدايشِ يک بيمارىِ حاد و مسرى مى شود؛ بيمارىِ مهاجرت! مهاجرت از اين سمتِ فنس ها به آن سمت. گويى آن سمتش، آب و هواى بهترى دارد و ميتوان اميدِ آزادى داشت. شايد هم توهم…

شهرام مکری در هجوم سعی دارد تا سینمای خودش و جهانبینی اش را به تکامل برساند، و نتیجه این تلاش فیلمی است غریب، پرتنش و سرگیجه آور. فرم و محتوا غالبا همانی است که پیشتر در ماهی و گربه دیدیم: خطوط روایی دایره وار و تو در تو، محبوس شدن کاراکترها در زندانی از مکان و زمان، شروری همیشه حاضر که تشنه به خون قربانیانش است و... .
اما تفاوت عمده این دو اثر این است که در ماهی و گربه تنها دوربین است که به عنوان شاهدی همیشگی بر وقایع ماجرا نظارت دارد و بدون هیچ کنش و واکنش تنها در مقام یک ناظر ظاهر میشود. حال آنکه در هجوم، ما یک پروتاگونیست داریم که تنها ناظر نیست، بلکه…

در تماشای هجوم شهرام مکری
شهرام مکری؛ در عروج یا هبوطِ تکنیک؟

آدمی که برای دیدن هجوم پا به سینما گذاشته بود، می‌رفت که شهرام مکری را ببیند نه یک فیلم سینمایی. می‌خواست که دوباره خودِ شهرام مکری را در قامت یک ماهی و گربه‌‌ی دیگر ببیند و این نوعِ شوق تلاقی با یک کارگردان، در سینمای امروز ایران وقتی این‌طور زبانه می‌کشد حادثه‌ی کم‌قدری نیست.
بلیط هجوم را از یک‌ هفته پیش در تماشاخانه‌ی پارس کرمان رزرو کرده بودم و در اولین برخوردم می‌توانم بگویم که این فیلم، یک اثر سرِپا و تراش‌خورده‌ی دیگری از مکری است که با همان تکنیک محبوب‌اش، (پلان‌سکانس)، همان نفس‌گیریِ ماهی و گربه را، با ضربِ به مراتب قوی‌تری به مخاطب خود عطا کرده…

Very cool that a heady sci fi vampire movie about queer assimilation/destruction (shades of Ganja and Hess) was made in Iran and I can now watch it, but the one take gimmick is really distracting and ultimately pretty limiting, even though it’s being used for explicit comparison purposes between two loops - the idea of exhausting BS representational work to stay alive in public vs self-destructive personal work to keep the former in place is compounded but not made more compelling by the obvious and distracting work that it takes to pull off this take. 

Having said all that, I did like this movie, partly because I like it’s thematic chutzpah and partly because all the tricks Mokri uses to…

Invasion opens with a text explaining the future world we're in: something has happened (it's unclear what) that has plunged some parts of the world into eternal darkness, while others have perpetual sunlight. Between "the darkness" and "the other side", there's a border. This story takes place in one of those dark places, where several murders have been committed in an exercise facility, and to understand what has happened, the police are doing a reconstruction, having the group of people who trained at the facility play the murderer and victims. Ali, our main character, says he killed the man (whose name I don't remember, but will call Joe) because he'd killed the two others and Ali tried to stop him.…

Mokri's gimmick in making an entire movie in one long take isn't as special as he thinks it is. It just makes the whole thing even harder to follow. This technique is just a lot of touble for him and his crew and nothing else! Just because it's difficult to make, it doesn't mean that it's any good. Look at Sam Mendes! He had cuts throughout his movies but with his masterful direction and his brilliant editor, it was made to look like one long take. That's what I call a milestone. That's what a director can be proud of. I know Mokri doesn't have the budget and the equipment Mendes has, but that's not the point.
Mokri must work…

Cyclical motions resulting in different outcomes, with experiences from the past, present and future blending into one. If that sounds confusing it’s because Invasion is, with a looping plot that changes variables on its different run throughs and doesn’t typically bother to explain many of those variables in the first place. There’s hints that the film takes place in a future Iran with border troubles and rumours of vampires but all that’s needed to know in terms of backstory is that Ali has to recreate the circumstances of his friends murder for the police and may or may not be hiding certain key pieces of information. The issue is that this correlates to hiding those same certain piece of key…

Very cool that a heady sci fi vampire movie about queer assimilation/destruction (shades of Ganja and Hess) was made in Iran and I can now watch it, but the one take gimmick is really distracting and ultimately pretty limiting, even though it’s being used for explicit comparison purposes between two loops - the idea of exhausting BS representational work to stay alive in public vs self-destructive personal work to keep the former in place is compounded but not made more compelling by the obvious and distracting work that it takes to pull off this take. 

Having said all that, I did like this movie, partly because I like it’s thematic chutzpah and partly because all the tricks Mokri uses to…

Invasion (Hojoom | هجوم)
9.30pm Friday, October 30th (AEST)
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Screens as part of Cursed Signal, a weekend-long, non-stop Halloween stream
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Contemporary cult Iranian auteur Shahram Mokri's single-take, vampire-tinged crime thriller Invasion (Hojoom) premieres in Australia, during Static Vision's free, non-stop, weekend-long Halloween streaming event, Cursed Signal.

After a body is found in a secretive sports arena which is seemingly shrouded by an eternal darkness, police work to reconstruct the circumstances of the crime so that the case can be closed quickly. However, during the recreation, the killer and his teammates plot another murder, this time of an alleged vampire.

As with Mokri's prior film, Fish and Cat (in competition at SFF2014), this intimate drama…