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Death of Yazdgerd (Bahram Beizai, 1982)
Topic Started: Jun 2 2015, 02:32 PM (314 Views)
Karl
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troubadour
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My "genre" is Days and Nights in the Forest, which I described in proposition as films about:

folk who're depressed, despondent, desperate, despairing, or plain cracking up due to hideous poverty, crushing failure in love or work, howling lonesomeness, wrestlins with God & Satan, betrayal by friends or spouses, or existential angst.


The miller's family are desperate because they have a royal corpse on the floor of their mill and his enraged advisers standing around telling them of all the slow tortures they'll endure before they die.




DEATH OF YAZDGERD (Bahram Beizai, 1982):

I think, I hope, that this will be the most divisive film I show. It's gonna knock some of your socks off, straighten your hair! But I'm sure a few others will hate, hate, hate it. Good!



Pictures:

Some production stills from the webpage of one of the actors. Sure wish the extant copy of the film looked so nice:

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Our video looks more like this: a shot of star Susan Taslimi waving the dead king's gold mask:

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Susan Taslimi starred in, and was the engine that drove, four of Beizai's movies: BALLAD OF TARA, DEATH OF YAZDGERD, MAYBE SOME OTHER TIME, and BASHU THE LITTLE STRANGER. The last has been voted by Iranian critics the best Iranian film of all time, though I think TARA and YAZGERD are the most brilliant of the director-star collaborations. Taslimi emigrated to Sweden after BASHU.



Bahram Beizai, not one for wisecracks:

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The man looks intense in every photo I've ever seen.

Born into a family of poets - his father, grandfather, great-grandfather, and uncle - Beizai was a famous writer and director of historical plays before becoming a filmmaker. DEATH OF YAZDGERD is from one of those plays. He has a long history of trouble with the censors and has had several films shelved in Iran, where apparently TARA and YAZDGERD still can't be shown. Martin Scorsese's World Cinema Foundation has recently restored Beizai's first feature from 1972, DOWNPOUR (Scorsese: "The story has the beauty of an ancient fable - you can feel Beizai's background in Persian literature, theater and poetry.")



Background of the play DEATH OF YAZDGERD:

Death of Yazdgerd was originally written and performed in the unstable political and cultural aftermath of the 1979 Iranian revolution. It deals with an historical event with a mysterious ending. When Islam was established in the Arabia, messengers were sent to four corners of the world to ask people to conform to the new religion. Upon receiving a negative response from the Persian Empire, Iran was attacked with great force by the Arabs. The army of Young Yazdgerd III was defeated and, in search of support, he rode east. Some time later, he was found dead in a flour mill and the miller was charged, by Yazdgerd’s ministers, with the King’s death.


An Iranian RASHOMON:

(don't read past here if you dislike the "spoilers")

In the turmoil of the Arab invasion of Persia, the doomed King, Yazdgerd, disappears only to be found, sometime later, dead in the house of a poor miller. As the King’s ministers and spiritual advisors attempt to understand what has happened, a variety of plausible stories emerge from the miller, his wife, and daughter, who are trying to exculpate themselves. As each member of the family takes turns describing, from the King’s perspective, what occurred, it becomes clear that both the mother and the daughter were victims of sexual violence at the hands of the King. To add to the confusion of events, the King has always been and is now masked; no one, including his closest advisors, can be sure that the dead man is actually the King or that the man claiming to be the miller is not, in fact, Yazdgerd. Throughout the play the concept of invasion serves as a thematic foundation. Islamic forces have invaded Persia; the King has invaded the miller’s house; the wife and daughter have been physically invaded, and even the masked personage of the King has not been untouched.

Beyzai's play can certainly be interpreted as a commentary about Iran's revolution, about the transition to power, and the role that suspicion and accusation play.

Keep in mind too when and where the film was made, especially those final lines! Any wonder the film was, and still is, banned at home?
Edited by Karl, Jul 14 2015, 03:23 PM.
Crusades are gone out of fashion for the moment and the only warfare at present worthy of the name is the bloodless crusade against fools. - Norman Douglas
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