Hamoun

This movie was crazy. Just when your starting to make sense of the movie something strange and unusual happens.And whatever you do dont eat while watching this.The writer of this film was obviously trying to make this movie different and exotic.Yet it just turned out basically all weird.If you like movies that are strange and collide with the usual this movie is for you.Finally,The subtitles are sometimes hard to see and are ungrammatical,yet you can mostly tell what the charcters are saying.

I just couldn't get into this...I must have missed something.

A thought-provoking humorous story with humorous and surreal scenes that touched upon concerns of modern Iranian society.

A fascinating account of the everyday lives of Iranian people. I recommend this to all.

Boring movie

This film is an interesting examination of a man's life disintegrating in middle age, but it borrows a bit much. Stylistically, the filmmakers borrowed from Fellini and this creates comparisons on the DVD cover. Philosophically it borrows from Fear and Trembling and throws in a lot of references to others, including Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, also about a man dissembling in middle age. Hamoun loses his mind as his life falls apart and his marriage descends into chaos in a society where divorce is problematic. He goes off the deep end and seeks to drown himself; the horrible disappointment is in the last scene when one sees he is condemned to go on living. This may be hell, which is to stay the state of living in the world for a sensitive artist-philosopher. That is, being a failure and sentenced to live as a failure. The film had some really interesting and touching moments that were the parts not borrowed from pretentious western texts, but revealing of family life in pre-revolutionary Iran. It was difficult to read the subtitles because they were not "letterboxed" and white against an often white background. It might also be difficult for western audiences to sympathize with the protagonist, but I think that is a factor of western audiences being brainwashed to believe they must find a character sympathetic to be interesting.

Love it.

This is a pretty interesting off beat flick! It chronicles the life of the protagonist, a writer by the name of Hamoun. The directorial touch of flitting between the past and the present is an interesting treatment and keeps the movie that much more enjoyable, since the contrasts are stark on the one hand & the plot crystallized on the other. As we weave through Hamoun's life, his work, his wife, her work, their relationship, the others in their lives... we slowly become completely enmeshed with the character & thats when the movie really starts to trip into phantasmagoria.Incidentally, the movie throws a very different light on the condition of women in Iran. Some of the dialogues and situations are indeed quite forward & reflective of an open society and one where women are not necessarily completely subjugated to men. Which makes one wonder if one is over-interpreting the middle east from television images, and maybe there exists the educated elite too, where women are an integral part of society.In any case, this is a delightful watch with friends with strong characters & an interesting storyline.