It's not an Athens International Film Festival if I don't get my share of Iranian films and this year it was the turn of an Iranian horror movie.
Under the Shadow, first feature film of Babak Anvari, focuses on all the clichéd techniques of horror films such as jump scares and constant unanswered mysteries but its story is also set in a true scary environment, thus making it more real and more threatening.
Set in Tehran in the 80's, in a post-revolutionized Iran, Under the Shadow focuses on the story of Shideh (Narges Rashidi) a young mother who is married with child and wants to return to her medical studies. Due to the events of the Iranian Revolution, however, at the beginning of the movie she learns that she is not allowed to continue at the University. This leads to a tense relationship with her husband who is also a doctor and soon gets transferred to a war zone to work - something that he has to do in order not to lose his license.
Therefore, Shideh is rather quickly left alone in her house with her young daughter Dorsa (Avin Manshadi). Tehran however is quite the war zone, too and everyone is starting to abandon the city. Shideh, on the other hand, stubbornly stays back even after a bomb is thrown on her block of flats. And that's when strange things start to happen. Dorsa's doll is gone missing and a bizarre presence has made an appearance.
There are constant enigmas throughout the movie. Where is the doll? Is this real or is it just the imagination of a woman and child who are stuck amidst a war? Also the threatening setting of Tehran seems at times more dangerous that the presence itself whose identity or intentions we don't know. Moreover, the movie relies on some banalities that give it a sense of we've seen it all before. However, Under the Shadow is not bad at all and it even won the Award for Best Screenplay at the AIFF -a decision with which I wouldn't agree in the slightest but proves that horror films still have their audience.
Under the Shadow was shown on September 30th.
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