Deep Breath

Deep Breath Nafas-E Amigh

Directed by Parviz Shahbazi


A car in a reservoir, a corpse wearing a sweater with a distinctive stripe and the long hair of a dead victim still trapped beneath the water (“I guess it’s a woman,” says a diver trying to recover the body). In Parvis Shahbazi’s haunting Deep Breath, all of these are somehow connected to Kamran and Mansour, homeless young men who drift through their days stealing, driving and engaging in petty acts of vandalism. Mansour has recently been evicted from his home and has a mother hospitalized for an undisclosed illness and an estranged sister. Handsome, longhaired and anorexic Kamran complains about the frequent, worried phone calls from his wealthy parents, yet still insists on always having a phone nearby. Their aimless existence is enlivened by the vivacious Ayda, an indefatigable walker and talker who sparks Mansour’s romantic interest and may offer him an escape from the self-absorbed apathy that is slowly killing his friend. Shahbazi has a gift for wry misdirection, and his touches of deadpan humor make this film a compelling fable of youthful anomie. Deep Breath’s portrait of disaffected Iranian youth sparked some controversy in Iran and postponed the film’s release.

—Pamela Troy
http://www.sffs.org/fest04/titleDetail.asp?title_id=18

Show Times
4/26 KAB 9:45 DEEP26K
4/28 KAB 7:00 DEEP28K

AMC Kabuki 8 Theatres
1881 Post Street (at Fillmore), San Francisco
Bus lines: 22 Fillmore, 38 Geary, 38L Geary Limited, 2 Clement, 3 Jackson, 4 Sutter


Reviewed/approved by talieshah -.