The Night it Rained (1967)
Directors: Nosratallah Karimi
Country: Iran
Genre: Documentary
Website: TIFF
Editor’s Notes: The following review is part of our coverage for TIFF’s I for Iran: A History of Iranian Cinema. For more information on upcoming TIFF film series visit http://tiff.net and follow TIFF on Twitter at @TIFF_NET.
Regarded as one of the pillars of Iranian cinema, Kamran Shirdel’s The Night it Rained is a film that illustrates the tenuous nature of truth as we explore an event as it is presented to us by government officials, members of the press, villagers, and railroad workers that offer diametrically opposed accounts of what really happened on one fateful rainy night outside of the village of Lamelang. It facetiously and often hilariously searches for unattainable truths as it looks for answers from people that are either servicing the myth or working toward its destruction, but neither side will find satisfaction as all that remains of the event are thirdhand accounts and firsthand lies. By juxtaposing these opposing viewpoints, Shirdel creates humor and comes no closer to the truth of that rainy night that would create a national hero of a boy who miraculously set fire to his jacket in the pouring rain to stop a train from crossing tracks that had their foundation washed away in the deluge. Despite the conflicting accounts of what really happened, we are presented with truths on the untrustworthy nature of historical events, the conflicts inherent in burgeoning industrial nations, the disconnect between the rural and urban, and the inequities of poverty and affluence as history is often defined by those who can afford to write it.
Regarded as one of the pillars of Iranian cinema, Kamran Shirdel’s The Night it Rained is a film that illustrates the tenuous nature of truth …
The influences of world cinema are prevalent throughout The Night it Rained; from Dziga Vertov with montage sequences of printing presses and tractors, to Kenji Mizoguchi with monolithic transmission towers looming over the thatched roofs of rural villages, and Jean Luc Godard with jump cuts, still images, self-reflexivity, and interviews that reveal an undercurrent of irony. These influences collide to create something unique and vibrant as Shirdel forges new cinematic territory that is both comical and profound. We are shown a broad spectrum of the cultural climate of Iran in 1967 through the textured faces of rural villagers, the pomp and circumstance of its politicians, and the frustration of the press as they try to posit factual information in a culture that appoints Literacy Corpsmen to see to the education and proper state sanctioned manipulation of young minds.
Banned and confiscated at the time of its release, The Night it Rained eventually surfaced in 1974 where it was screened at the third Tehran International Film Festival and received the top prize (and was subsequently banned again).
Banned and confiscated at the time of its release, The Night it Rained eventually surfaced in 1974 where it was screened at the third Tehran International Film Festival and received the top prize (and was subsequently banned again). It is a stunning farcical documentary that illustrates the fragility of truth as it is manipulated by opportunists and eroded by time, and the dangers of reactionary thinking and unmerited objective certainty as reality is usually several degrees removed from what we are presented with. Kamran Shirdel is an important figure in the history of world cinema, and his films are irrefutable evidence of his genius that require no Literacy Corpsmen or state sanctioned indoctrination to understand.
The Night it Rained is a stunning farcical documentary that illustrates the fragility of truth as it is manipulated by opportunists and eroded by time, and the dangers of reactionary thinking and unmerited objective certainty as reality is usually several degrees removed from what we are presented with.
