Movie No. 20 (2014): A CUBE OF SUGAR
A Cube of Sugar (2011)
Director: Seyyed Reza Mir-Karimi
Cast: Reza Kianian, Negar Javaherian, Farhad Aslani
In Farsi, with English subtitles
The story happens in a span of one day. Family members gather in an old house in an old Iranian city to help prepare for the wedding of the youngest daughter. The bride-to-be's sisters and their husbands and children populate the what-seems-like unrehearsed and chaotic scenes captured by the camera as it pans through the interconnected rooms of the house or intercut shots between the rooms and the garden, or between the garden and the mysterious warehouse, as children talk about ghosts, male adults hunt for a hidden treasure, and female adults engage in lazy talks. Then a power failure and a cube of sugar divert all these preparations into another kind of gathering.
Director: Seyyed Reza Mir-Karimi
Cast: Reza Kianian, Negar Javaherian, Farhad Aslani
In Farsi, with English subtitles
The story happens in a span of one day. Family members gather in an old house in an old Iranian city to help prepare for the wedding of the youngest daughter. The bride-to-be's sisters and their husbands and children populate the what-seems-like unrehearsed and chaotic scenes captured by the camera as it pans through the interconnected rooms of the house or intercut shots between the rooms and the garden, or between the garden and the mysterious warehouse, as children talk about ghosts, male adults hunt for a hidden treasure, and female adults engage in lazy talks. Then a power failure and a cube of sugar divert all these preparations into another kind of gathering.
The movie, though basically a portraiture of a typical Iranian culture-tied family, is an irony. That said, I don't want to go further because there's no way I can do that without writing down potential spoilers. There's a fine craftsmanship in the way the movie is directed that can be compared to a perfectly cut sugar cube. The dizzying cinematography perfectly captures the details of the chaos of the wedding preparations and other goings-on.
This is pure cinema. No gimmicks.
Rating: 4.0/4.0
Date seen: February 16, 2014
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