Rismaneh baz (2008)

Mikaeil and Asgar’s long, eventful journey begins in some of the poorest parts of southern Tehran. They pass through the city’s traditional, crowded center and enter the maze of Tehran’s highways. Staring at modern landmarks such as Milad Tower, they eventually reach the affluent neighborhood of Shahrak-e Gharb. This unwanted assignment introduces them to a new face of urban life in Tehran and to the fundamental differences between them and young people their own age. The differences are not limited to Mikaeil and Asgar’s appearance and clothes compared with those of their peers in Shahrak-e Gharb. Their battered pickup, set against the colorful, latest-model cars driven by the city’s well-to-do youth, and the fact that the two are strangers as they lead a cow along, while young people from the upper classes walk dogs, all point to a growing class divide that is driving the residents of this vast city farther and farther apart. At first glance, the bitter, arduous lives of two poor young men who are forced to deliver a cow to the north of the city may seem like a tired, worn-out cliché. But the filmmaker, especially in the execution, skillfully makes this situation—one lacking in dramatic highs and lows—entertaining and intriguing for the viewer. Rism-e Baz, particularly in its opening third, when the story takes place in and around a slaughterhouse, seems like a harsh and somewhat disturbing film. But once the protagonists begin their long journey with the cow, new interest is added to the story and the film. First comes the subplot involving a university student, her accident, and her forced journey with Mikaeil and Asgar to the hospital. By deliberately leaving her mobile phone in the pickup, she keeps the viewer wondering; the subplot never reaches a clear resolution, avoiding a clichéd outcome. After that, the two young men come face to face with a part of society they have rarely seen—and perhaps, like Asgar, have never even imagined. This leads to the sequence in which the cow escapes, and the townspeople chase it before it is slaughtered out of necessity, followed by the two young men’s tired, hopeless gaze at the sunset behind Milad Tower, which in this film becomes a symbol of the clash between tradition and modernity within urban life.