Persian cinema series keeps on going, and I was kind of scared of not being able to find pieces in the same standards of Kiarostami’s. Once your expectations reach a certain level, it’s hard to switch the name of the filmmaker and venture into another imaginarium, but Iranian cinema looks just too appetizing to me to stop with one director and last week it was time to take a risk and widen the exploration.
‘Gold and Copper’ is a relatively recent movie with a deliciously aged flavour. As unknown and surprising as a rouhani’s daily life can be for many of us, the scenarios of the film quickly show its hospitable nature, and the viewer starts to feel linked with the chores and hardships that this young family unexpectedly faces in the film. I mention ‘in the film’ because these characters could be real, or at least that’s the feeling that Homayoun Asadian has given me.
For reasons I don’t fully understand, love stories seem to be portrayed following forcefully westernized patterns, even in most non western films. The magic about 'Gold and Copper' laid exactly on the absence of such a bad practice. Despite the fact that Negar Javaherian makes you fall in love from the first scene, romance here is not a matter of bucolic wonderings, eternal oaths or forbidden passions but the scent of a humble, finite and daily giveaway. This way, elements such as innocence, femininity or roguery are displayed in uncommon shapes.
The encounter with the best of us sometimes happens during the worst circumstances, when hope and struggle are your only assets, and success is not guaranteed at all. Maybe for the characters of this film surrender has less to do with loss than with a real find. Maybe there are other ways in which love scenes can be lived and filmed, and maybe they have even more charm.
