TIFF 2020: 180° Rule
TIFF 2020Farnoosh Samadi's feature 180 Degree Rule is a slow but assured melodramatic and haunting drama, invoking subtle social commentary undertones and a stirring central performance that documents guilt and loss with extraordinary results.
The first thing to note and what will arguably be the biggest criticism of Samadi's debut feature film is that it is cold. It unequivocally is but purposely so regarding character. It is a factor that is a conscious decision by writer/director Samadi to showcase the muted and distant relationship between the two central characters before and, ultimately, after a moment of tragedy that separates the two in brutal fashion. To discuss just how well crafted 180 Degree Rule is, it is best to operate the feature in a before and after approach regarding this "moment of despair".
To begin with the 'before', the socially political undertones are clear regarding the climate and misogynist variables that are surrounding not only the culture but central relationship this film is examining. Small, subtle nuances build and build silently in the background between the performers Sahar Dolatshahi and Pejman Jamshidi. Passive aggressiveness and microaggressions fill the feature in an enigmatic flair that showcases that there is undoubtedly a breakdown of communication has occurred but precisely what is left to moot over.
Jamshidi's coldness and almost muted depiction of hierarchy heavily influence the disarray, while Dolatshahi's pride and love drunk approach to her daughter ultimately begin to grate and resent each other. An interesting but a tremendous depiction of which only offers to only infer and never explicitly state. An element that is reinforced without with an existential and thematically brooding unspoken pain that speaks a thousand words in visual descriptives.
Then there is the "after" moment of despair. It is in this latter half of which showcase the tremendous ability through Samadi's screenplay to layer and foreshadow. Moments between the two leads, Sahar Dolatshahi and Pejman Jamshidi, act deliberately as meaningless plot devices but are, in fact, layers of visual and verbal exposition for what is to come. Executed in a brilliant implication that ultimately reinforces the cataclysm or the reasons why such a tragic moment occurs. It is the screenplay from Samadi that needs to be singled out here for its gentle albeit staunch depiction of these moments that, for a debut feature, are expertly done.
Then there are the performances themselves. Before long, there is an apparent brooding yin and yang approach of anger meets guilt. Two incredibly daunting and emotionally complex themes that both Jamshidi and Dolatshahi register to utter perfection. As one character has a trajectory from coldness to boisterous emotional vindication, the other follows the opposite. Paced at a rather short eighty or so minutes, it is even more powerful in which the performances, as well as writer Samadi's screenplay, centralise itself on having little to no fat or excess. Everything has an eerie natural undertone, and much like life itself, 180 Degree Rule works in a frame of the unknown and the unexplained. No one is innocent, but no one can be allocated full blame and responsibility.
These are performances dictated though eyes and silence. It is an enriching and destructive force for the audience to witness, and one brought to the screen in a powerhouse of unverbalised mood. Dolatshahi is outstanding in her depiction of grief. It is easy to suggest that there are multiple character moments that feel archetype and unwittingly brazen, but those very moments bring out the truly disturbing underbelly of the descent into grief and guilt. Furthermore, each character decision is made in an eager and vindicated moment of emotional guilt and atonement. The grave begins to dig deeper, trying to fill the soil with lies and deceit, and before long its so deep that its clear it can fit more than one body.
