Septembers of Shiraz closes with a dedication to all victims of persecution all over the world. That’s a pretty broad brushstroke, so I’ll interpret it to mean that, if you come to a screening, it includes you, too.
This lifeless, by-the-numbers production is an excruciating exercise in cliche and tedium. Its sole joy is in trying to figure out which of its leads is overacting most. Is it Adrien Brody, making crazy-face as the Persian-Jewish jeweller incarcerated by the Revolutionary Guard in 1979 Tehran? Or is it Salma Hayek and her “where in the world is this?” accent, staying home and weeping and fighting with the maid? Director Wayne Blair (The Sapphires) leads them both into histrionics while his inert camera shoots each sequence in as bland a fashion as possible.
It’s the Islamic revolution, which means bad news for a wealthy Jewish family in Iran. After a scene of watching TV and ranting “It’s getting bad!” it suddenly gets bad. Isaac (Brody) is taken from his office by guards and Farnez (Hayek) is not permitted to see him. Not even when she brings her friend and housekeeper, the ubiquitous Shohreh Aghdashloo, to vouch for her.
Isaac faces a masked interrogator who accuses him of having dealings with the Mossad (he doesn’t) and his wife penning propaganda for the decadent west (she dabbled in some travel writing.) The back and forth continues. You will confess! I will not! They torture him mentally, then physically, then, finally, he’s able to get out by liquidating his assets and donating them to the cause.
Meanwhile, Farnez has been having trouble with the help. Habibi, as Aghdashloo’s character is called, is maybe letting a little bit of the revolutionary rhetoric get to her. Why does she have to wash toilets while her employer gets to live in luxury? Farnez reminds Habibi that if it weren’t for her hardworking husband, she and her son would still be selling flowers in the street. It’s a pitiful excuse for film-making, all tell-don’t-show. It’s impossible to feel much sympathy for these characters, what with the on-the-nose dialogue and Hayek’s risible accent. The final act of the film tries to put a tiny bit of oomph into the proceedings as Isaac, Farnez and their daughter flee the country, but this comes mostly in the form of absurd McGuffins. There are hidden diamonds; there’s an incriminating letter from the Shah’s wife; there is a lot of running around cut to bombastic music.
Septembers of Shiraz opens with a “based on a true story” card and I do not want to make light of this family’s plight, or the persecution of religious faiths, or any other group, by fundamentalist regimes. But as a movie, it’s flabbergasting to me that someone could sit in an editing bay, watch this in full and think “done”. It’s a story about a guy who gets arrested and, after a little while, gets out. Director Wayne Blair never gets us in the head of any of his characters or creates any kind of depth.
Septembers of Shiraz comes to us at a time of great sabre-rattling against Iran from certain quarters. Its producer is Avi Lerner, whose typical slate includes wretched alpha male action pictures such as The Expendables. I don’t think it is out of line to question why he would choose this as his “prestige picture” to bring to the Toronto international film festival.
