What It’s About
“Terrestrial Verses” presents nine vignettes of ordinary citizens in Iran grappling with the rigid strictures and bureaucracy of their theocratic government. There’s the new father (Ark) who gets discouraged from naming his son David (too western), and the female rideshare driver (Asgari) whose car gets impounded when traffic cameras catch her not wearing a hijab. Then there’s the young girl (Shabani) who clings to her love of music and dance even as she’s being fitted for a confining school uniform. The sequences build to a devastating indictment of Iranian society.
Why We Love It
Self-funded and shot in a week, Ali and Khatami’s subtle, stripped down film does a whole lot with very little. In each segment, the stationary camera is on the specific supplicant, with the voice of authority off camera. It’s unnerving, but the film’s outsize impact really comes from witnessing different examples of how the government tries to regulate most every aspect of people’s lives. Clocking in at a trim 77 minutes, “Terrestrial Verses” may be short, but there’s no denying its cumulative power.