Produced, directed by Khosrow Sinai.Screenplay, Sinai, Habib Ahmadzadeh.
With: Mehdi Ahmadi, Dariush Faezi, Behrouz Shoeybi, Farshid Ebrahimian.
The life of Persian author Sadeq Hedayat (1903-1951), who translated Kafka, Chekhov and Sartre and was a central literary figure in old Tehran, is the subject of the intermittently fascinating "Conversation With the Shadow." Pic is an intriguing introduction for viewers unfamiliar with Hedayat, and is obviously a labor of love for veteran director Khosrow Sinai ("Alleys of Love"). A pity the subject is too specialized for all but the most literary of audiences.
Dramatized documentary is told as a literary detective story. Three articulate young men -- a film critic, a lit teacher and a researcher -- decide to explore the underpinnings of Hedayat's work any way they can. Pic opens with a seance to invoke the writer's ghost and a compilation of clips from horror classics "The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari," "The Golem" and "Nosferatu." The critic describes how these films influenced Hedayat's "The Blind Owl," an Iranian transposition of the Dracula story. Hedayat's travels to Europe and India are also examined. Sinai gives the film a dark, nocturnal atmosphere in which to speculate about what secret, Rosebud-like shadow -- perhaps Hedayat's lost Parisian love Therese -- eventually drove him to suicide.
Camera (color), Ali Loghmani; editor, Nariman Chaychi; art director, costume designer, Samira Sinai; sound, Abbas Kianvar. Reviewed at Fajr Film Festival (competing), Jan. 26, 2006. Running time: 90 MIN.
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Date in print: Mon., Feb. 20, 2006