Direction: Massoud Bakhshi
Country: Iran
Hyper-dramatized and crippled by a slender script, Yalda, A Night for Forgiveness exposes some of the shameful breaches of the Sharia law through a humiliating situation. Maryam (Sadaf Asgari) - a jailed 22-year-old Iranian woman accused to kill her 65-year-old husband for money - is led to a widely popular reality show where she can escape the death penalty if granted pardon. The only person who can give her life back is the upper-class, if indebted, Mona (Behnaz Jafari) - the only child of the deceased - who, although resentful and arrogant, considers the forgiveness just to receive the blood money.
This situation is peppered by the fact that Maryam, who was pregnant at the time of the tragedy, ended up losing her baby. Highly agitated and impatient, she claims it was all unintentional instead of playing her ‘role’ for the audience.
The writer-director Massoud Bakhshi actually inspired himself in a real Iranian talk show called “Honeymoon”, giving the film airs of a documentary (there’s three in his five-piece filmography) that rings untrue. I felt the story was being narrated as someone who stutters while speaking. It was hard to connect with the central character since the director is quick to stimulate the mind but not the heart. His idea turned out too formulaic in its curvilinear dramatic arc to convince.
Among scenes that feel whether awkwardly forced or dragging, Yalda only scarcely produces some excitement. It’s an unpassionate, conventional and timid work, which I’m not prepared to forgive.
