Reseñas de la crítica

Tehran on the eve of the Muslim New Year provides the backdrop for this engrossing Iranian drama (2006) about a marriage in crisis... Asghar Farhadi directs with subtlety.

Seemingly trivial coincidences reveal essential plot information, not through exposition but calculated editing choices. Fireworks Wednesday stands out from Farhadi's work in this sense, using the occasional jump cut and shift in perspective to create a distrustful sense of time and space.

Farhadi imbues each character with hidden dimensions and makes the process of uncovering them engulfing and cathartic. Is there such a thing as "heartbreaking delight"? I think there is, andFireworks Wednesday achieves and maybe even defines it. There's no happy ending on the horizon, but every detail is rapturously observed, and each twist in the story contains an emotional payoff.

Farhadi brings keen discernment to this unraveling marriage, and a third-act revelation packs a wallop. While not as brilliant as his 2012 Oscar-winning "A Separation" or 2009's "About Elly," the film has the same qualities of compassion and suspense that have made Farhadi one of the world's most acclaimed directors.

The family melodrama of Fireworks Wednesday allowed the filmmaker to make several comments on the state of marriage in Iranian society and its impact on women, whether they were married, soon-to-be-wed, or divorced. The film is particularly realistic in the way in which it portrays the role of deception in relationships, and how lying becomes normalized between partners, frequently resulting in a complete breakdown in communication.

The servant, the parent, the husband and the wife—Farhadi sets all them to balletic motion. And though he reconfigures these basic elements in each subsequent film, what remains are his characters' tenuous connections to one another, their precisely miscalculated attempts to stand—securely—still.

With "Fireworks Wednesday," Farhadi turns his attention to the Iranian middle class and the strains within the marriages of people who are materially comfortable. Farhadi also introduces a style that is cooler, more intricate and refined. While "About Elly" displays these qualities at their most expansive and dramatically charged, "Fireworks Wednesday" is inarguably the film that most resembles "A Separation" and lays the groundwork for its brilliance.

As was the case with About Elly — made in 2009 but only given a stateside theatrical run last year — it proves to be not just interesting in how it foreshadows the filmmaker's more mature works, but also a gripping piece of storytelling in its own right.

By refusing an establishing shot, Farhadi suggests that vision, no matter its environment, determines effect... The film interrogates the tensions between tactility and vision in complex ways.

All of this is rather cliché and, with a less deft director at the helm, could be tiresome and treacly. But the charm of Fireworks Wednesday is not in an innovative story. It is in scenes like the one where Roohi sits on a bus, going to her temp agency to get an assignment, and puts her hand out the window.

What distinguishes the film is the way Farhadi keeps us guessing from as to what exactly is happening and why... This compelling, corrosive account of male-female relationships in today's Tehran is tempered by genuine compassion for the individuals concerned; wisely, Farhadi never serves judgement on them in their troubled pursuit of truth, love and happiness. Intelligent, illuminating and directed with unflashy expertise.