The Last Step

Pele Akher

Genre

Drama

Director

Ali Mosaffa

Run time

1h 28min

Cast

Leila Hatami, Ali Mosaffa

Actress Leila bursts into laughter on camera during the filming of a dramatic scene. Her improper behavior is a reaction to the recent death of her husband Koshrow, who accidentally fell down a flight of stairs. And it is Koshrow who serves as the film’s somewhat unreliable narrator, appearing in the movie even after his death. The couple’s complicated yet loving relationship unfolds as a delicately ironic detective story inside the elusive and, at the same time, obsessively arranged space-time of memory. Nevertheless, it reveals Koshrow’s secret life crisis and delves deep into the past, to an ancient house in the mountains.

„Finely acted and crisply shot on 35mm, including some strikingly beautiful footage of Iran’s mountainous hinterlands, THE LAST STEP delivers its potentially grim and melodramatic subject matter with a pleasingly playful lightness. Inevitably, this intimate domestic drama does not pack the same emotional and political punch as „A Separation”, although the plot does coincidentally touch on divorce, dementia and Iranian émigrés in Europe. Ultimately, this is yet another reminder that Iran is awash with world-class film-makers, even when the stories they tell feel a little too slight and selfindulgent.”

Stephen Dalton, Hollywood Reporter

Genre

Drama

Director

Ali Mosaffa

Run time

1h 28min

Cast

Leila Hatami, Ali Mosaffa

Actress Leila bursts into laughter on camera during the filming of a dramatic scene. Her improper behavior is a reaction to the recent death of her husband Koshrow, who accidentally fell down a flight of stairs. And it is Koshrow who serves as the film’s somewhat unreliable narrator, appearing in the movie even after his death. The couple’s complicated yet loving relationship unfolds as a delicately ironic detective story inside the elusive and, at the same time, obsessively arranged space-time of memory. Nevertheless, it reveals Koshrow’s secret life crisis and delves deep into the past, to an ancient house in the mountains.

„Finely acted and crisply shot on 35mm, including some strikingly beautiful footage of Iran’s mountainous hinterlands, THE LAST STEP delivers its potentially grim and melodramatic subject matter with a pleasingly playful lightness. Inevitably, this intimate domestic drama does not pack the same emotional and political punch as „A Separation”, although the plot does coincidentally touch on divorce, dementia and Iranian émigrés in Europe. Ultimately, this is yet another reminder that Iran is awash with world-class film-makers, even when the stories they tell feel a little too slight and selfindulgent.”

Stephen Dalton, Hollywood Reporter

Info

Rating

(none)

Production year

2012

Global distributor

Pimedate Ööde Filmifestival MTÜ

Local distributor

Pimedate Ööde Filmifestival MTÜ

In cinema

11/21/2012