A sense of inescapable repetition builds over the course of the nine vignettes of Tehran encounters that make up Terrestrial Verses, a punchy and scathing vision of Iranian public life from directors Ali Asgari and Alireza Khatami. And that is wholly the point — because as each citizen, boxed in within a static frame, faces the off-camera employer, bureaucrat or other mid-level vessel of institutional power that can decide their fate that day, the petty indignities and abuses pile up. We sense the suffocating reality that such a scenario will inevitably erode any illusion of private freedom as the ruling regime’s powerful and their lackeys grind down non-compliance, and the favoured cynically grasp corrupt advantages.
Bitterly comical
Several bitterly comical vignettes turn on the idea that names, clothing and even pets cannot be chosen at whim. The attempt of one man (Bahram Ark) to register his baby’s name as David, after his wife’s favourite author, is denied on the grounds it would promote foreign culture. A schoolgirl in bright colours and headphones (Arghavan Sabani) reluctantly submits to a store-fitting of the dour-coloured outfit and veil required for a religious obligation ceremony. A distraught pet owner (Gouhar Kheri Andish), leash still in hand, tries to penetrate the offhand disregard at a police station to track down her chihuahua after officers take it in one of their regular dog round-ups. «In this city, if someone gets lost, they can’t be found, and you are looking for a dog?» comes the incredulous response to her questioning. Tehran is not a place to look for official assistance for one’s daily problems; rather, it is a place to keep a profile as low as possible, we have come to understand. Appearances are scrutinised for decorum, as eyes and surveillance cameras monitor behaviour, creating much scope for coercion and blackmail.
As a citizen’s ability to work and earn a living is frequently on the line, a lot is at stake with small acts of rebellion, which can be tantamount to reputational suicide. A rideshare driver (Sadaf Asgari) is at risk of having her car, her only means of economic livelihood, confiscated over an accusation that she was driving without a hijab. Cars and houses are not considered private spaces, she is reminded, if the authorities find a way to see inside them. Prospective workers cannot even be confident of secure autonomy over their own bodies, one uncomfortable job applicant (Faezeh Rad) discovers in an especially chilling segment, as her prospective employer makes inappropriate sexual overtures and implies good working conditions will depend on her compliance with his predatory demands. A laid-off contractor (Majid Salehi) is quizzed at length in an interview for another manual job on the pillars of religion and other aspects of the Quran. This required demonstration of knowledge seems to have little to do with the spiritual enrichment of the population; rather, it is an exercise of power to pressure applicants and make them sweat needlessly.
This required demonstration of knowledge seems to have little to do with the spiritual enrichment of the population
When conformity is diverged from, humiliation is sought, as shown in perhaps the strongest vignette, in which a man seeking to renew his driver’s license (Hossein Soleimani) is made to reveal the tattoo on his body bit by bit so that the official can «report» the «abnormal» adornment accurately. The tattoo is a poem by thirteenth-century mystic and Islamic scholar Rumi. «I am drunk, and you are insane. Who’ll take us home?» it reads. Poetry, or the creative impulse of the imagination, is the true home of the outsider, or at least, a route to transcendence, belonging and solace. Its expansive beauty directly opposes the shrinking vice of bureaucracy, meaning a private wonder that no punitive, controlling eye can co-opt or stamp out. Indeed, the film’s name originated from a poem by feminist poet and filmmaker Forugh Farrokhzad, whose insistence on independence of thought and inner expression in art and her own life received much backlash (and a ban on her work for years after the Islamic Revolution) — a pioneer whose voice echoes in today’s ongoing Woman, Life, Freedom movement in Iran.
Within the bounds
A particularly ironic and self-referential vignette depicts a meeting over a contentious film script, as shooting permission is denied unless the patricide, and eventually most aspects that define the story, is removed. «You must be creative,» the script’s author (Farzin Mohades) is told — but what that means in the context of contemporary Iran is the acrobatic task of forging something meaningful within the bounds of a strict and arduous censorship process determined to grind down artists’ forbearance, and kill any hint of dissent. Terrestrial Verses is a film that carries its resistance in its somewhat miraculous existence — and its concluding earthquake, which rocks the cityscape of Tehran in a poetic gesture that comes on as a disaster of annihilation but just might signal the ever-present and life-affirming possibility of momentous, system-upending change.
