Originally posted by Madhuban 18 Dec.

I have little to add to Trevor's review of Still Life. Just a few brief comments about what moved me.

Still Life - Sohrab Shahid Saless

As a term copiously used in fine arts classrooms, "still life" refers to paintings of inanimate objects. In stark contrast to Naderi's film, Wind, Water, Dust, that attributes life to inanimate objects, Saless' film empties out the life of a railway employee and his wife to make them look like inanimate objects. Rather than being reductive, Still Life is a thought-provoking study of humanity reduced to dull routine in a mechanical age. Even the occasional train that passes by has more life than that of the couple. The ultimate irony is that the crossing that Mohammad is in charge of and carefully tends to, hardly has any vehicles! Left unguarded, it would not make much of a difference. Yet, through 30 years, Mohammad's world comprises manning the crank that allows and disallows thoroughfare, and the meaning of his life has been reduced to taking care (he retains that belief) of a tiny stretch of railroad. Nothing "happens" in the film, and the letter announcing Mohammad's retirement is hardly an event. With little earthly possession and no money, retirement has none of the connotations of leisure and happiness for the elderly couple. The only moment in the film when there is a quickening of life is when Mohammad's replacement arrives to take his place, and the couple invite him to partake of their simple meal when they have no clue where their next meal is going to come from. Brilliantly shot, the film is an aching "still life" of humanity without meaning and a human world that has shrunk to and become one with a patch of rail track.

M