TIFF 2021 ZALAVA: Reflections by Robert Aaron Mitchell

 Arsalan Amiri, Zalava (Iran, 2021)

 Zalava is a small farming village. Nearby is a military outpost. The year is 1978, before the revolution in Iran. All is not well in Zalava.

 

The film opens with a woman hauling a large pack. She walks down cramped village paths. She comes across something. She stops dead in her tracks. She stares ahead with palpable fear. Her nose starts to bleed. Villagers arrive at the military outpost screaming there is a demon in the village. “She’s possessed!” Villagers surround her. Her fear grows. The villagers fear grows. She backs away from the mob and falls down a cliff to her death.

 

After this tragic death a complaint is filed towards the Sergeant of the outpost, Sergeant Massoud. (Navid Pourfaraj) He is blamed for the death of the woman because he ordered all the guns in the village to be confiscated. A young soldier Younes reads the military order that Sergeant will be effectively relieved of duty by the next morning.

 

As the villagers line up to receive their confiscated guns one of the people is Khalaj Zalavaei the father of the woman who fell to her death. Upon receiving his rifle he points the gun at Sergeant Massoud and pulls the trigger. The rifle, empty of bullets clicks. The Sergeant’s last night in command will be a long one. A black cat ominously wanders the military post.

 

The village is once again gripped in throes of fear. Another demon is attacking the village. Massoud and Younes take a jeep and drive up the windy, mountain roads to the village. A couple of dead, mutilated sheep lay on the side of the road. As they arrive villagers are in full panic mode trying to escape and save their livestock.

 

Way back in November 2016 here in America, people, mostly white people, began to wear safety pins as an act of solidarity with visible minorities who were rightfully concerned for their well being as a populist was elected riding a wave of nationalism and xenophobia to the White House. The underlying thought was that a person who was being threatened, say on a city bus, would spot the white person wearing a safety pin and approach knowing that they were with a “safe” person. Needlessly to say, placing the burden on the person who was already in a dangerous situation. In Zalava we also see safety pins being worn by the villagers. The thought is the demons are repelled by metal. Further, to this end we also see many scythes hanging from doorways.

 

A traveling exorcist by the name of Amardan (Pouria Rahimi Sam) - a true highlight of the movie – shows up to assist the village in the removal of the current demon. Amardan removes his shoes and heads up the stone steps to the house with the possessed person armed only with an empty glass pickle jar. If he is successful he will return with the demon successfully trapped inside the jar. If he does not succeed he has given firm instructions that he is to be stabbed below the waist to effectively bleed the demon out which will still keep the village safe.

 

Another character that should be mentioned is Doctor Maliheh. (Hoda Zeinolabedin) She works in the village collecting samples of the villager’s blood and urine to send to a government lab to ensure the villagers overall health but because of the level of anxiety in the village the samples contain far too much adrenaline and are not effective as true samples. Sergeant Mossoud is also quite smitten with her. Another matter to note is although Dr. Maliheh is very much rooted in science and medicine she does still believe that there is a possibility that demons do exist.

 

 

The film is ultimately the test of two wills. Khalija the influential villager who lost his daughter to the demon who wholeheartedly believes in the supernatural influences surrounding Zalava and the will of Massoud who believes that all the demon fears are nothing more than superstition.  Interestingly, Aramand may believe or may only be riding the wave of paranoia to cash in. As was mentioned earlier Dr. Maliheh is a person of science and still retains some belief that the demons could be real. 

 

There are some wonderful standout scenes with Dr. Maliheh and Sergeant Massoud as well as Massoud and Amaradan debating if he is actually an exorcist or just a con artist. There is also some horror troupes of a black cat, creaky doors and shadows on the wall. One of the best scenes involves the black cat and the pickle jar. 

I consider this one of the best films I have seen this the 2021 edition of the Toronto International Film Festival because as a  demonic possession, exorcist film it is playing off the genre convention that the audience will dismiss the reality of the demon until the big third act fantastical reveal of the demon. We didn’t believe, but we knew it all along. Zalava wonderfully subverts expectations. The demons of fear and superstition were visible the entire time. We are watching a community give into fear and superstition. 

 

For me one of the great scenes of the movie is when the mob riding on delirious fear begin arguing amongst themselves on how they should proceed, contradicting the many long held steps to demon exorcism and removal.  One other thing I want to mention, is the entry point into the story is definitely through horror conventions however the film is also very much a love story.

 

The film takes place in a per-revolutionary Iran but parallels a lot of what I am seeing in the world right now with an invisible virus. People are eschewing science and medical fact to chase disbelief and unproven medical cures. Of which the end result is many times, very scary, tragic and deadly results. 

 

 

TIFF 2021 ZALAVA: Reflections By Carol Borden

By Carol Borden 

 In Arsalan Amiri’s Zalava (Iran, 2021) there is certainly a demon among the people. They are scared and capable of anything. But is that demon their own fear or is there something else cursing them?

The film is set in 1978 in Zalava, Kurdistan, a village settled by Romani one hundred years ago. The village itself is beset by djinn that can only be controlled either by capturing the djinn in a jar or bottle or by wounding a possessed person below the waist. The people of Zalavi prefer to shoot someone in the leg as it has a higher chance of survival but they also will stab or cut a person below the waist so that they “blood spurts.” This prevents the demon from possessing others. As the film opens, a young woman has been declared possessed and the villagers have summoned Sgt. Massoud Amhadi (Navid Pourfaraj) to do something about it. Massoud confiscates the villager’s rifles to prevent them from hurting the girl. He tells them, “She’s better possessed than having you mutilate her.” But after Massoud, his sidekick / underling Younes (Baset Rezaei) and the rest of the local gendarmerie return to their station outside Zalava, the girl’s father draws his knife to do what he believes must be done. Unfortunately, as she backs away from him, she falls to her death.

 

The local people complain to the government, blaming Massoud for her death and his illegal confiscation of their rifles. Massoud receives orders to step down and return the rifles. The day before he is to retire, he dons a very 1978 suit, goes to sign papers and turn in his badge. But the villagers return to the station demanding that he do something about the demons attacking Zalava. Instead of telling the new commander it’s his problem now, Massoud dons his uniform and returns to Zalava to discover metal implements hung in front of doors and strung across alleys to scare the demons away. Everyone is terrified. Some appear to be convulsing. And the center of the activity is a house people are certain now contains a demon. They have called a ritual specialist, Amardan (Pouria Rahimi Sam) to exorcise the demon. Amardan tells the assembled villagers to bring their rifles and all the musicians. The musicians come, but no one will bring a rifle because they believe Massoud will seize them again. Amardan tells Massoud to shoot him in the leg if he comes out empty handed. Then he asks someone to stab him in the leg if Massoud is too afraid to shoot. Amardan comes out of the house carrying a clear jar that he claims contains a djinn. The musicians play. Everyone dances. Massoud is extremely skeptical. And now the real suspense begins. 

 Like a lot of folk horror, Zalava relies on the fear of what people are capable of based on their beliefs and what might be happening that’s rooted in things from long ago that urban and urbanized people might no longer understand. But Zalava also reminds me of Val Lewton’s psychological horror movies at RKO in the 1940s. Though there is a lot of successful suspense built around it in the film, it doesn’t really matter if there is a demon in that jar. The demon’s presence or absence is less important than the destructive power that people themselves are capable of. It’s hard to see how one djinn is really worse than a village of people willing to shoot, stab and even kill each other in their fear that something secret is wrong with someone among them. And the accused we see before they are shot, stabbed or driven off the edge of a building don’t seem much different than anyone else. Though while embodied djinn seem initially innocuous, we do hear that Amardan can send disembodied djinn to do things like pee in dams. While watching Zalava, I couldn’t help thinking about Emir Ezwan’s Roh / Soul (Malaysia, 2019), another film with another demon setting people against each other. But as that demons says, “All we do is whisper.” In Zalava, our fear and panic is far more destructive than any demon could be by itself. 

 

I assume there are social and political implications that aren’t immediately apparent to me in setting the film before the Iranian Islamic Revolution in 1979, but I do appreciate setting it in that time for other reasons. Massoud’s suit and the film’s color palette certainly reflects that era in film. There are some beautiful shots of Massoud’s tan jeep driving through arid, rocky mountains. I didn’t mention Dr. Maliheh (Hoda Zeinolabedin) in my synopsis, but she is integral to the film and she has fantastic chemistry with Navid Pourfaraj’s Massoud. Pourfaraj is another actor who conveys so much with his eyes alone. 

I also appreciate director Arsalan Amiri’s point in his introduction that this kind of panic can happen anywhere anytime. It’s not specific to this place. At the same time, I am not entirely comfortable in setting it among an ethnic minority, Kurdish Romani, even as I know that having some kind of other who is simultaneously outside society and involved in secret and perhaps dangerous supernatural activity is a common story the world over. I don’t know enough history about the area or of Iranian film to say more about whether the people of Zalava are even read as Kurdish or Romani. All that aside, Zalava is an excellent film. And we are wise to remember that, yes, these panics can happen anywhere and we should watch out for them not just in others, but in ourselves because they always feel righteous. 

And if you are concerned about the kitten or the rabbit, they don’t die.