TRAPPED

دربند

Directed by Parviz Shahbazi

Discoveries / Iran / 2012 / drama / 92 mins / Farsi with English subtitles / West Coast Premiere

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TRAPPED

Digiplex Mission Valley
November 9, 2013 2:30 pm

TRAPPED

Digiplex Mission Valley
November 10, 2013 12:35 pm

Description

Best Director, Best Supporting Actress, 2013 Fajr International Film Festival
Official Selection, 2013 Vancouver International Film Festival

Nazanin is a freshman med student doing everything right. When not in class, she’s tutoring the neighborhood kids or cooking the food her mother provides her. To save money, she also finds a roommate, the spunky go-getter Sahar, who charms Nazanin as she’s charmed just about everyone else, including a group of male friends who hang out at the apartment at night, telling jokes and smoking hookah. Maybe Nazanin’s too much of a do-gooder, or maybe Sahar’s too volatile of a party animal, but the two start butting heads until life starts to fall apart for Sahar. Nazanin must then decide whether to help her struggling friend.

The result is as compelling a moral drama as Asghar Farhadi’s hit A Separation, which, like TRAPPED, is a domestic play with the intensity of a thriller. Watching Nazanin decide on her fate is compelling not just because of the possible outcomes, but because of what it represents for a young woman trying to make it in Iran. But this is no mere inspirational tale about education as uplift. It’s about how bound educational opportunity is to street economics. Stylized but naturalistic, and with an unforgettable use of Cat Stevens’ “Father and Son,” TRAPPED is another urgent, riveting film that maintains Iranian cinema’s status as amongst the world’s best. –Brian Hu

Co-presented by: Persian Culture Center