All joking aside, this black/white, blistering film is for anyone whose experienced isolation or torment. And, especially for pompous asses who clamor for this type of turgid drama drawn out at a snail's pace. For those whose interests I've piqued, it's now available on Apple. You may grapple with why Jeremy Allen White agreed to be in this picture, albeit a fleeting few minutes. Someone with his star power has the power to pick and choose with little to lose and lots to gain. Directed by Iranian born Babak Jalali who received a BAFTA Award for his short film "Heyday" and "Radio Dreams" which won the Hivos Tiger Award. The film focuses on Donya, played with great strength and nuance by Anaita Wali Zada, an Afghan refugee herself, in the role of a recent immigrant who fled Afghan after serving as a translater for US intelligence. Donya plays a haunted refugee struggling in a lonely purgatory. working a numb minding job in a Chinese cookie factory in Fremont. She lives alone in a tiny walkup apartment amidst other recent Afghan immigrants battling their own ghosts. Some ex-Afghans offer solace, the wizened waiter for one who keeps her company as she eats dinner from a slight distance and a weary Afghan closer in age who offers wisdom between long drags on his fags late at night on their adjoining walkway. And, there are immigrants who shun Donya believing her a traitor. While working her tedious, fortune cookie stuffing and wrapping job, she's befriended by an overweight, body-pierced co-worker, Joanna. Joanna is on a mission to find a mate. Their friendship appears the only respite staving feelings of total alienation. With little to do outside work and a myriad of thoughts running through her mind. Donya suffers from insomnia. She's desperate to obtain a prescription for sleeping pills. Her cunning and resolute attitude manages to usurp a bureaucracy swarting all her efforts to obtain help. Help comes in the way of a bizarre shrink (a dead-pan Gregg Turkington) as Dr. Anthony. Dr. Anthony thinks the answers to life all stem from Jack London's novel, "White Fang." Donya devises a scheme to insert her tel. # advertising for a date on fortune cookie slips. One cookie lands in the hands of the stingy, resentful wife who is a co-owner with her husband of the factory. The husband is kind and well-meaning. He refuses to fire Donya as his wife demands. However, the wife constructs a cruel ploy luring Donya on a road trip to do a fool's errand. "How wise are they that are but fools in love?"* The car ride leads Zada to cross paths with a lonely auto-mechanic. They talk over lunch across separate booths inside an empty diner. Don't miss out, take a chance on seeing this out-of-the-way, artsy film. It's a melancholy joyride, beautifully shot with superb acting. Of course, this is a must see for the asses even if they aren't able to articulate what makes this unassuming movie so appealing.
*Unknown-fortune cookie slip
No comments:
Post a Comment
Don't be shy, let me know what you think