Modest Reception is a road movie set in the spectacularly beautiful, snowy mountains of Iran. We travel with a man and a woman (husband and wife? brother and sister? colleagues? they change their story every time they meet someone hew so we never find out their relationship to each other!) as they hand out sacks of money to random strangers they meet along the way and take photos of the recipients before moving on.
Is this a pure act of charity or is there something more bizarre or even sinister going on? As the journey progresses, the pair make odd demands on the people they give the money to, so it seems like a test of people's honesty or their scruples. People's reactions vary wildly, from the spiritual man who doesn't want the money at all, to the guy who picks up the cash and then denies having even seen it.
The film offers insights into the hardships of daily life in this remote part of Iran and provokes the viewer into thinking about their own relationship with money and consumerism and there is no resolution to the story, as at the end we still don't know the pair's motives for their actions.
Modest Reception is part of the Edinburgh International Film Festival. You can see it at:
21:20, 27 June in Cineworld 12
18:45, 28 June in Cineworld 13
Disclaimer: I have a press pass for the Edinburgh International Film Festival and attend free press screenings.
4 comments:
I'm always dissatisfied at open-ended movies. It feels like the film-maker didn't really have any point to make and that it was merely an exercise in self-indulgence!
this movie sounds intriguing but frustrating at the same time. i'd like to know their relationship to one another (what's the point of lying about your relationship to strangers?) and i would also like to better understand their motives. doesn't sound like there's much closure at the end. but, then life doesn't always have closure either, i suppose. hope all is well.
Sounds intriguing...open ended movies always make one think about possibilities and that's fun. Enjoy the film festival.
Ms Sparrow, Naquillity and Carole, thanks for your comments! It's interesting to read your different reactions to open ended movies!
I'm sometimes frustrated by movies that are too open ended, but in this case, i felt that the open ended nature of the main characters' relationship meant that the viewer was encouraged to think about what the film was really about. It wasn't about these characters as such at all...
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