Fat Shaker, Iranian film premiered at Sundance and Rotterdam
Mohammad Shirvani's "Fat Shaker" is the first Iranian film that premiered at the prestigious Sundance film festival last month, but it has also been declared "anti-Iranian" by some "fundamentalist websites" inside Iran, according to Hollywood Reporter. The film also won the Tiger Award earlier this week in Rotterdam's International Film Festival.
Programmed in the underappreciated New Frontier experimental section at Sundance, Fat Shaker examines - with a near-documentary approach- the abusive relationship between a morbidly obese man (Levon Haftvan) with his deaf-mute adult son (Navid Mohammadzadeh). A woman photographer (Maryam Palizban) who takes an interest in the pair provides some gentle intervention, but soon the father is mistreating her as well, even though he consumes copious amounts of illegal liquor and is too drunk or disoriented to even care for himself. Whether the woman’s presence will have a healing effect on this fractured family will depend on the father relenting some degree of obsessive control, which is not a concession he appears to welcome.
Although the events that unfold suggest a refutation of patriarchal social customs, since the only character with substantial dialogue is often drunk or mentally disengaged, little meaning emerges from onscreen conversation. Deliberately obscure, the film challenges audiences to attempt a productive level of engagement at almost every stage.
About Sundance
Many know Robert Redford, the attractive all-American movie star and director, for his roles in movies like "Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid." Others know Redford as an environmentalist, philanthropist and liberal political activist (demonstrated in his movies like "Lions for Lambs"). But perhaps Redford's largest impact on the movie industry is his Sundance Film Festival, which every year turns the beautiful Park City, Utah, into a mecca for independent film makers, film lovers and liberal artists. The Sundance Movie Festival is the biggest bazaar in the world for independent film makers seeking a lucrative payoff for their low spending budget art.
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