Crimson Gold

Talaye sorgh

Iran

2003

97 Min

Color

1.66:1

Farsi

Currently 3.9/5 Stars.
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CAST Hossain Emadeddin, Pourang Nakhael, Azita Rayej, Kamyar Sheisi, Shahram Vaziri, Ehsan Amani, Kaveh Najmabadi, Saber Safael

SOUND Dana Farzanehpour, Masoud Behnam

Cannes (Un Certain Regard): Un Certain Regard Award Jury Prize, Edinburgh (Director's Showcase), Toronto, New York, Berlinale (Forum), Chicago (International Competition): Gold Hugo, Rotterdam (Main Programme)

Synopsis

A murder and a suicide occur early one morning in a jewelry store. Behind this headline lies the story of a desperate man’s feelings of humiliation in a world of social injustice… When his friend Ali shows him the contents of a lost purse, Hussein cannot imagine the large sum of money marked on a receipt for an expensive necklace. He knows that his pitiful salary will never be enough to afford such luxury. Hussein feels even lower on the social scale when a smooth-talking professional thief mistakes the two friends for petty crooks. Hussein receives yet another blow when he and Ali are denied entry to an uptown jewelry store because of their appearance. Hussein’s job delivering pizzas allows him a full view of the contrast between rich and poor. He motorbikes every evening to neighborhoods he will never live in for a closer look at what goes on behind closed doors. The hypocrisy of the system is thrown in his face wherever he turns. But Hussein will taste the luxurious life for one night before his deep feelings of humiliation push him over the edge. –clevver.com

Director

Jafar Panahi

Jafar Panahi (Persian: جعفر پناهی , born July 11, 1960 in Mianeh, Iran) is an Iranian filmmaker and is one of the most influential filmmakers in the Iranian New Wave movement. He has gained recognition from film theorists and critics worldwide and received numerous awards including the Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival and the Silver Bear at the Berlin Film Festival.

Jafar Panahi was ten years old when he wrote his first book, which subsequently won the first prize in a literary competition. At the same age, he became familiar with film making. He shot films on 8mm film, acting in one and assisting in the making of another. Later, he took up photography. During his military service, Panahi served in the Iran–Iraq War (1980-90) and made a documentary about the war during this period.

After studying film directing at the College of Cinema and Television in Tehran, Panahi made several films for Iranian television and was the assistant director of Abbas Kiarostami’s… read more

After studying film directing at the College of Cinema and Television in Tehran, Panahi made several films for Iranian television and was the assistant director of Abbas Kiarostami’s film Through the Olive Trees (1994). Since that time, he has directed several films and won numerous awards in international film festivals.

Panahi’s first feature film came in 1995, entitled White Balloon. This film won a Camera d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival. His second feature film, The Mirror, received the Golden Leopard Award at the Locarno Film Festival.

His most notable offering to date has been The Circle (2000), which criticized the treatment of women under Iran’s Islamist regime. Jafar Panahi won the Golden Lion, the top prize at the Venice Film Festival for The Circle, which was named FIPRESCI Film of the Year at the San Sebastián International Film Festival, and appeared on Top 10 lists of critics worldwide.. Panahi also directed Crimson Gold in 2003, which brought him the Un Certain Regard Jury Award at the Cannes Film Festival. During that time Panahi was detained in the JFK airport, New York, while taking a connection from Hong Kong to Montevideo, after refusing to be photographed and fingerprinted by the immigration police. After being chained and waiting for several hours, he was finally sent back to Hong Kong.

Panahi’s Offside (the story of girls who disguise themselves as boys to be able to watch a football match) was selected for competition in the 2006 Berlin Film Festival, where he was awarded with the Silver Bear (Jury Grand Prix).

On 30 July 2009, Mojtaba Saminejad, an Iranian blogger and human rights activist writing from inside Iran, reported that Panahi was arrested at the cemetery in Tehran where mourners had gathered near the grave of Neda Agha-Soltan. He was later released, but his passport was revoked and he was banned from leaving the country. In February 2010 his request to travel to the 60th Berlin Film Festival to participate in the panel discussion on “Iranian Cinema: Present and Future. Expectations inside and outside of Iran” was denied.

On 1 March 2010, Panahi was arrested again. He was taken from his home along with his wife Tahereh Saidi, daughter Solmaz Panahi and 15 of his friends by plainclothes officers and taken to the Evin Prison. Most were released 48 hours later, Mohammad Rasoulof and Mehdi Pourmoussa on 17 March 2010, but Panahi remains in ward 209 inside Evin Prison. Panahi’s arrest was confirmed by the government, but charges were not specified. Filmmakers Ken Loach, Abbas Kiarostami, Kiomars Pourahmad, Bahram Bayzai, Asghar Farhadi, Nasser Taghvai, Kamran Shirdel and Tahmineh Milani, actor Mehdi Hashemi, actresses Fatemeh Motamed-Aria and Golshifteh Farahani, Federation of European Film Directors, European Film Academy, Asia Pacific Screen Awards, Network for the Promotion of Asian Cinema, Berlin Film Festival, Karlovy Vary International Film Festival, International Film Festival Rotterdam, Febiofest and Toronto Film Critics Association have called for his release. France’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs and minister of culture and communications Frédéric Mitterrand, German foreign minister Guido Westerwelle, Canadian government and Human Rights Watch have condemned the arrest. On 8 March 2010, a group of well-known Iranian producers, directors and actors visited Panahi’s family to show their support and call for his immediate release. After more than a week in captivity, Panahi was finally allowed to call his family. On 18 March 2010 he has been allowed to have visitors, including his family and lawyer.

Panahi’s style is often described as an Iranian form of neorealism.[citation needed] Jake Wilson describes his films as connected by a “tension between documentary immediacy and a set of strictly defined formal parameters” in addition to “overtly expressed anger at the restrictions that Iranian society imposes”. His film Offside is so ensconced in the reality that it was actually filmed in part during the event it dramatizes – the Iran-Bahrain qualifying match for the 2006 World Cup. —wikipedia

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Zachary George Najarian-Najafi

6Apr13

"Have you ever done that?" "Done what?" "Have fun." What's fun?" With Crimson Gold Panahi created a film both personal and political. It's both a rallying cry against the totalitarian system that has held Iran hostage for decades, and a dark psychological exploration of one man's desperation. One reviewer compared this to Scorsese's Taxi Driver and Kurosawa's High and Low, which are both apt comparisons, but Crimson Gold takes a different direction. The casting of an actual pizza delivery man with paranoid schizophrenia brings an element of fatalistic realism to the film. This one will be hopping around in my head for a while.

filippo

13Mar13

fat albert :(

dalena

6Mar13

Thematically similar to Kurosawa's "High and Low" and Scorsese's "Taxi Driver" but the main character's intentions are so vague that it casts a veil of mystery and tension enough to drive the story full circle. This is the first Panahi film I've had the chance to watch. I'm surprised of how openly critical he is compared to his good friend Kiarostami.

Christoffer

10Aug12

The subtle and expressionless acting of the main character contributes to illustrate the mind of a psychotic man on the edge of sanity, but this film for me also is a culture study of a society where social classes are still painly visible.