Iranian director Saeed Roustaee returns with us to his very beautiful Leila and Her Brothers, a family story with a tragic twist, presented at the Cannes competition and which deserved to be shortlisted.
After impressing with Law of Tehran, Said Rustai made his big debut at the Cannes competition with Leila and her brothers. The almost three-hour film-river, which caused great emotion during the projection and takes a good place among the predictions of the Golden Palm branch. But the jury of Vincent Lindon decided otherwise, and the feature film was not even included in its list of awards, which many considered unfair.
A few weeks later, it is in Paris that we find its director stirring up this magnificent drama. Or a story, with accents of tragedy, about a family torn by the throat, where the interpreters shine and a lot of images and sequences remain in our minds after the screen. Starting with this beautiful last shot.
AlloCiné: As in your first film, Life and Day, Layla and Her Brothers puts family at the center. Why is this topic so important to you?
Said Rustai: For me, the individual and what connects individuals to each other is important. But you should know that the definition of family in Iran is probably a bit different. The family nucleus is very important there. There are many bonds between the people of this family and they are almost inseparable. We’re even dependent on each other, so we can’t see it, and perhaps subconsciously, that’s at the heart of my two films.
To reinforce the idea that they are inseparable, do many scenes take place within the walls of the family home?
There are two types of shots in my film. First, those who are at home – family or manucher For example – with lots of close-ups and close-ups. Showing the connection between individuals. As important as their relationship is, we will have closed and tight spaces.
And when we want to show the scale of the thing, the scale of the disaster, we have shots like a factory: a general shot and large spaces, because it’s about the many individuals inside the factory. whose life will depend on its closure. And there it was necessary to make a greater impression.
When we look at this family, we realize that there are many of them in Iran
Judging from the title’s character emphasis, where Leila is quoted while her brothers appear more anonymous, we get the feeling that one of the film’s aims was to challenge the state of women in Iran.
Yes quite. And this character is also important because it is strong. He is smart and active. He looks into the future and sees what will go wrong. He tries to foresee problems where Alireza Run away from the situation while it remains. Because he knows how to manage things. He is the one who goes to tell Alireza that he needs her help because he doesn’t accept feelings.
He feels that he has not succeeded, so he decides to hire Alireza as a mediator to reach out to the other brothers and thereby seek results. He has a point. He is a person who does not decide with his emotions. He wants to go step by step towards something better.
Was having so many characters, especially on the brothers’ side, a way to represent different parts of Iranian society?
I didn’t see it that way. The audience, of course, can infer things or ask this or that. But when I write, I don’t think about the character in terms of what he can represent to the public. However, I have a lot of respect for women who are responsible for families, the ones who wear the panties, and Leila can obviously be one of those women who takes all the responsibility and continues to potty.
Characters don’t really have a function when I’m writing a film. Especially when you look at this family, you realize that there are many of them in Iran. And that seeing the problems and evils of this family, many have the same.
If we stay in writing: the approach to sometimes conflicting relations between generations is very reminiscent of a tragedy. Was that one of your inspirations here, be it Greek tragedy or Shakespeare?
I think about these things before I start writing. And I thought about this tragic scale, because for me it’s not just about social problems: there are lives that are destroyed, jobs that are destroyed. And even when we see comical situations in the film, there is something tragic about them. Because it’s almost comical to think that life can turn so easily.
Saeed Roustaee (third from left) and his cast before the Cannes screening of “Leila et ses frères”
We feel this harshness in the verbal violence of certain scenes. How important was it for you to confront the audience with these changes that make them uncomfortable?
Everything has its own logic. Objects will be nested within each other to achieve, for example, a form of abuse. Or that Leila is going to hit her father. It doesn’t fall from the sky, there are crescendos that make this possible. Like the time they try to convince their father not to give them gold bars at the wedding. They can’t stand it anymore, they are tired.
At first they will be very kind to him, then they will come to the point of begging and scolding themselves. This is what Alireza expresses when she says that no one will believe that the gift is from them because no one thinks it is worth it. He catches himself. And since nothing works, we end up with insults, verbal abuse. But nothing comes from outside. I do not tell myself that I must put the offense in a given place. This comes from the heart of the story.
And in contrast to these scenes of verbal violence, great importance is attached to appearance and silence. To what extent was the film constructed during editing in terms of rhythm to allow space for this breathing?
I find my rhythm more during cutting and production than during editing. For me, everything is planned in advance and then there is a lot of rehearsal, even unnecessary. If the dialogue starts and ends, the frame will go as it is in the timeline and I don’t want to cut it. I know exactly how it goes, even though the film has an editor, Bahram Dehgan. A great person and full of ideas, in terms of assembly and structure.
Daily, hourly, the lives of Iranians are under the influence of inflation
Why did you want to make the film in a particular year? Did you need an anchor to tie the story into the context of the time when the price of gold was falling?
As a filmmaker and even as a person, this is something I’ve experienced since I’ve known myself. It’s everything around me, the sanctions against my country and the consequences for those around me or myself. It’s been going on for a long time, but they got stronger under Barack Obama, and the pinnacle, of course, was Donald Trump. Daily, hourly, the lives of Iranians are under the influence of inflation. And that’s really something.
The movie is about a car that is quite cheap. At the end of filming, its value was 100 million dollars. Today, a few months later, it is worth 250. So you see how we live with these problems every day? When I see so many social problems around me, I wonder how I can overcome them as a filmmaker, as an artist. I can’t because the narrative is most important to me.
And since we’re in the form of a tragicomedy, these problems become the narrative. Because it’s almost more appealing to the audience than watching a story like this. When you’re walking up and down the street and you see the price of gold balls changing, it’s so comical that you think it’s unreal. But it is, and that is what makes it a tragedy.
Interview by Maximilien Pierret in Paris, July 8, 2022
Source: allocine
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