Fireworks Wednesday

This article is about the film. For the festival, see Chaharshanbe Suri.

Fireworks Wednesday (چهارشنبه سوری)
Theatrical poster
Directed by	Asghar Farhadi
Produced by	Jamal Saadatian
Written by	Asghar Farhadi Mani Haghighi
Starring	Hedye Tehrani Taraneh Alidoosti Hamid Farokhnezhad
Music by	Payman Yazdanian
Cinematography	Hossein Jafarian
Editing by	Haideh Safiyari
Distributed by	Boshra Films
Release date(s)	2006
Language	Persian

Fireworks Wednesday (Persian: چهارشنبه سوری , Chaharshanbe Suri) is a 2006 Iranian film directed by Asghar Farhadi and co-written by Farhadi and Mani Haghighi. It stars Hedyeh Tehrani, Taraneh Alidousti, and Hamid Farokhnezhad.

Plot

Fireworks Wednesday is a portrait of three marriages set against the backdrop of the Persian New Year, Chaharshanbe Suri (Wednesday Feast).

The story begins with Rouhi, a young woman approaching her wedding day, flirting with her fiance as they ride into town together on his motorcycle. To make some money to help pay for the wedding, she secures a temporary job cleaning an apartment in northern Tehran. Upon arriving at the apartment she finds herself in the middle of a heated domestic dispute between Mojdeh and Morteza. Mojdeh suspects that her husband Morteza is cheating on her with the next door neighbor Simin, a woman who set up a beauty salon there after her own marriage broke up.

Over the course of the day, the young woman, the sparring couple, their small son, the wife's sister and husband, and the beautician engage in a series of exchanges, confrontations, and prevarications as the truth unfolds.

Cast

• Hedye Tehrani as Mozhde Samiei
• Taraneh Alidoosti as Roohi
• Hamid Farokhnezhad as Morteza
• Pantea Bahram
• Sahar Dolatshahi
• Mehran Mahram
• Houman Seyyedi as Roohi's Husband
• Behshad Sharifian

Reception

Upon the release at Fajr International Film Festival, the film gained critical acclaim in its home country where it won 3 Crystal Simorgh.

Deborah Young of Variety wrote in her review: "Few Iranian films have tried to realistically depict both the urban middle and lower classes, and fewer still with the complexity of story telling and depth of characterization in Asghar Farhadi's impressive third feature, Fireworks Wednesday... The quality of the production is evident in Hossein Jafarian's fluid cinematography and Hayedeh Safyari's nervous editing. The final scenes are a tour de force in which the bonfire-strewn streets fill with merrymakers and the exploding fireworks look as dangerous as a war, an apt metaphor for the everyday violence in the characters' lives." [1]

Sheila O'Malley of Slant Magazine praised the movie as well as Hedyeh Tehrani's performance: " Hedyeh Tehrani, a delectable actress, plays Mozhde, the depressed wife. This is a marvelous performance, layered, painful, heartfelt. It's a difficult part... Tehrani has one of those malleable expressive faces so beloved by cameras everywhere. She thinks something, and it shows. She feels something, and we get it. The scenes of the fights with her husband are electric, exhilarating to watch. They feel like real arguments and have a jagged chaos to them that is truly frightening." [2]

In another review Jeffrey M. Anderson of Combustible Celluloid gave the film 3 & 1/2 Stars (out of 4) and praised originality of Iranian cinema: "One of the things I love about Iranian cinema is that it seems to inspire itself. Even a decade after the first Iranian "New Wave" films began appearing in the United States in 1997, Iranian filmmakers have refused to "go Western" and use Hollywood methods in their films. Rather, Iranian filmmakers have continued to work with the original ideas and methods that made their cinema exciting in the first place... Director Asghar Farhadi takes his time, allowing information to creep in at its own pace rather than trying to force it all upon us in the first ten minutes. But the most vivid element is his well-rounded characters: men and women truly relating to one another in both positive and negative lights."[3]

Geoff Andrew of Time Out wrote: "What distinguishes the film is the way Farhadi keeps us guessing from as to what exactly is happening and why; repeatedly shifting our point of view, he forces us to question our assumptions about characters and their reliability. This compelling, corrosive account of male-female relationships in today’s Tehran is tempered by genuine compassion for the individuals concerned; wisely, Farhadi never serves judgement on them in their troubled pursuit of truth, love and happiness. Intelligent, illuminating and directed with unflashy expertise." [4]

Accolades

• Gold Hugo at Chicago International Film Festival (2006)
• Golden Lady Harimaguada at Las Palmas Film Festival (2007)
• Crystal Simorgh for Best actress (Hedieh Tehrani), Best Director (Asghar Farhadi) and Best Editing (Hayedeh Safiyari) in 2006 Fajr International Film Festival^[1]

References

1. ^ http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0845439/awards

External links

• Chaharshanbe-soori at the Internet Movie Database