IFFK 2023: In Terrestrial Verses, ordinary Iranians navigate repression in daily lives

Underground political workers, subversive figures all have occupied the centre of the narrative in powerful political films that have come out of Iran over the years. But in Terrestrial Verses, directed by Alireza Khatami and Ali Asgari, being screened in the world cinema category at the 28th International Film Festival of Kerala (IFFK), what we get to see are ordinary people who are facing the heat of the repressive regime in various ways in their mundane daily activities.

Underground political workers, subversive figures all have occupied the centre of the narrative in powerful political films that have come out of Iran over the years. But in Terrestrial Verses, directed by Alireza Khatami and Ali Asgari, being screened in the world cinema category at the 28th International Film Festival of Kerala (IFFK), what we get to see are ordinary people who are facing the heat of the repressive regime in various ways in their mundane daily activities.

A handful of short sequences of people of varying ages speaking to an authority figure, not seen on screen, make up the film. But that description does not even remotely convey the potent power of this work. None of the people we see are making loud political slogans. For that matter, even a filmmaker who is shown speaking to a particularly irritating censoring officer, is not making a political film, but a family drama based on the violence that he has seen within his family. But, even that does not get past the censor.

One of the standout sequences is that of a young girl in colourful clothing, dancing to upbeat tunes, being asked to try out a loose colourless clothing and headscarf for her school. The girl, who doesn’t give in easily, in the end dejectedly says that she can see only her eyes, when asked to look at a mirror. Another man has a harrowing time with an authority figure for not having an Islamic name for his son.

In another sequence, an old woman turns up at a police station, looking for her pet dog, which has been seized by the authorities for walking it in public. She is the only person in the whole film who gets even a mildly sympathetic authority figure to talk to, a person who offers her another dog. The rest of them seem to be speaking to a wall, which would not budge whatever be the arguments being placed before them. A school girl, questioned for taking a ride on a motorcycle with a boy, is the only one who manages to put the person questioning her in a spot.

In events closely paralleling the many reasons that led to the protests by women in Iran last year, a woman is questioned for riding a car without wearing a hijab. Though she initially refuses having done so, she later forcefully argues that her car is a private space, but to no avail.

Once moral codes on what to eat and what to wear begin to be imposed on a society, the net is bound to incrementally widen its scope, with limits set on all possible spheres of human activity. Terrestrial verses is a powerful statement on the importance of standing up against any attempts to impose such codes.