Etamad Cinema, Tina Jalali wrote in Etemad newspaper:
“Shabgerd”, the latest work by Farzad Motman and starring Amir Aghaei, Roshank Garami, Amirhossein Fathi and Mahshid Afsharzadeh, is being shown in cinemas in the country these days; A film that has a classic narrative and in which the characters pass stories to each other, but they all actually tell the same story. Shabgerd is a film that tells us that the subject of the story and even the narration are not so important, but the essence of the cinema is important, the atmosphere formed by the combination of image and sound is the main reason for the attractiveness of the films. According to Motman, Shabgerd is a film that first of all originates from love for the essence of cinema. What is important is the atmosphere that is in front of us and we feel it.
It seems that you have a special interest in the night, in most of your films the characters roam at night and the events are affected by the night. What do you think?
In the first poem that Roya sings in the movie “Shabhai Roshan” there is a line that says: the story always started from the heart of the night, but I believe that in the two films All Night and Night Tour the adventures take place at night because the stories have mystery. The darkness of the night always gives strength to secrets, besides, for me, who is a genre filmmaker, the night of Tehran is absolutely ideal. However, this city distorts the genre elements of the film, which is why I often prefer my films to be set at night, but all that aside, it seems that after making clear nights, making films that are somehow set at night has become a habit for me. Made me do some late night movies.
When I was watching Shabgerd, it seemed to me that this film is on the path of your other works, you are one of the directors who do not follow any special rules and you mess up the rules in every film. Talk a little about this.
Shabgerd has a classic narrative, it is three acts with two turning points, although the first and last acts are very brief and there is a very wide middle act, but since it has an eye on the tricks of B-grade movies, for the audience who is familiar with these tricks No, it might seem a bit experimental. The form of narration, which is full of children’s stories and the characters pass the stories to each other, so that in the end we realize that practically all the stories support and define a story, it is a very old form of narration, it is a traditional form of narration, and it is similar in Persian literature. There are many, even in children’s stories and motels, you can find similar ones, like I ran and ran, I reached Sarkohi, I saw two women, one of them gave me water. He gave, one of them gave me bread, I ate the bread myself, I gave the water to the ground and…. In fact, Shabgard is such a story.
In fact, the stories of separation that end up on the same path.
A narrative in which the characters pass stories to each other, but they all tell the same story, just as this motel tells a story, this motel wants to teach children the traditional jobs of this country. But what can we do when apparently everyone got used to Hollywood movies, Sid Field’s cookbooks, and three-screen models, and I think they were completely poisoned by it.
In the conversation we had a few days ago, you mentioned that in Shabgard, the audience is faced with the situations of Jafang.
When we use dialogues unrelated to the topic in the middle of a scene that contains a serious event, or we start to create events that are not in line with the spirit of the story, we get a sarcastic situation. And they used to write about being fun. In today’s cinema and literature, Jafang’s situations have found ironic meanings, in the movie Shabgard; The first scene and the last scene show completely different tendencies.
Did you have a specific model in mind to reach such a narrative?
Nighthawk does more or less what Quentin Tarantino did in Anti-Death with the plastic of second-rate action movies of the seventies.
Shabgerd here uses the appearance of exploitation films and compares this plastic to what is known as social drama in Iran and in practice finds similarities between exploitation and social drama, in other words Shabgerd is practically a satire and we can say satire Iran’s social dramas.
Some time ago, I was talking to one of the film critics, he said that today’s Iranian society is influenced by Nazl films, now is it possible that the tone of your film is affected by something like that?
It has been a long time, almost five decades or maybe more than four decades, that not only me, many of us feel that there are elements of abstraction, abstractness and even surrealism in our society. were formed
However, you weren’t worried about how the audience would relate to the film?
If Shabgerd had been produced in the same year and released with proper advertising, I think it would have sold 3-4 billion, which considering the low cost of the film, the box office was fantastic. In the current situation, this choice will not be made. Moreover, in the last three-four years, a large part of young people who The main target audience is the nightlife, they got angry with the cinema and their slogan is “No to everything that has a license”, now the young people spend most of their time in the cafe. a phenomenon that has caused the spread of cafes in the city in the last three or four years, as you can see, many of the houses that remained from the Wartan style between Karim Khan Street and France Street have become cafes. It has fueled others, such as the popularization of underground theaters, which is very popular now, but I, who have a lot of contact with young people, know that these sanctions Rather than a conscious and political decision, it is caused by the mood and mood, I hope some young people, many of whom I know are also movie lovers, will break their anger and watch Shabgard. This film was made for them, the main problem we have now is that Shabgard is released, but its audience does not go to the cinema.
The situation is very difficult for social films.
In today’s Iranian cinema, comedies, on the one hand, and films that became known as organic films, on the other hand, are almost the only films that are released, many filmmakers no longer think about domestic release and put a ban on it, and many produce films in Iran without restrictions. , they make films in an underground way and show them abroad and their copies reach us through the Internet, I think gradually A kind of Iranian cinema is being formed in Europe and America, and cinema managements are the main responsible for these conditions during the last two decades.
Do you agree that Iranian cinema needs to change the rules and should move according to the rules and coordinates of today’s society?
Either the Iranian cinema will change and the film production and screening will be removed from this highly bureaucratic and controlled form, or it will be limited and limited until we reach a point where we look for signs of Iranian cinema only outside of Iran, a phenomenon called serials. The home television network is fueling this bad situation, a phenomenon that everyone mistakenly thinks has an audience but doesn’t, it only has traffic and they are selling traffic and with The big money they earn actually makes the cinema without customers, while they themselves are not really finding customers and are only selling traffic.
TheYou have always mentioned that you love cinema, it seems that the structure of Nocturne is defined by your love of cinema.
I have already worked in two films, Shadow of Light and All Night, with similar themes to the main theme of Nightingale, films that are supposed to convince us that the subject of the story and even the narrative are not that important, the essence of atmospheric cinema, which is a combination of images and the sound is formed are the main reasons for the charm of the films, Shabgard is a film that first of all originates from the love for the essence of cinema. What is important is the atmosphere that is in front of us and we feel it.
Mr. Motman! In general, on what basis do you choose the actors of your film? Your films have different casts.
Actors are chosen almost as always, they are formed based on the best that the project’s facilities allow, and naturally, in choosing them, we must reach a common language with the producer and the production team.
I am very happy that I was able to work with one of my favorite actors Roshank Garami again in this movie. I am very happy that I was able to bring her back to the cinema and see her again. I am very happy that I was able to work with an established actor like Amir Aghaei. I am happy to work with actors who entered the Iranian cinema in recent years and showed that they have good talent, such as Nazanin Salahjo and Amir Hossein Fathi.
One of the characteristics of the film Shabgard is the multitude of characters and it seems that you used new young actors.
Fortunately, it was possible for us to use a number of young actors fresh out of acting classes and with very little experience. I think it was a good experience, in any case, these young people should come and I recommend that if we have a project in hand that will give these young people the opportunity to work, we should not hesitate. I’m so glad this happened.
Considering that you have blockbuster movies in the comedy genre, but have you not fallen into the trap of comedy movies in the last one or two years?
I was never a follower, I always worked regardless of what was in fashion and, as the marketers say, what was in the stock market. Of course, when everyone makes a comedy, I prefer to do something else, even though I had two best-selling comedies in the past, but in such a situation, I prefer to do something else, and by the way, I prefer to do more experimental things.
And the last question, why didn’t you release Shabgord earlier?
Shabgerd should have been shown two years ago, but unfortunately, it took a very rough and inconsistent path to reach this more or less limited release, but since I’m not a grumbling person, I prefer not to talk about it, the movie is currently in release.