In his second theatrical film, multi-hyphenate Mehran Modiri, one of Iran’s most beloved TV satirists, turns his hand to the thriller genre with mixed results. He writes, directs and performs in the intense but increasingly contrived social issues movie “6 A.M.,” in which a small incident escalates into a big tragedy. Although the indie feature mostly looks and plays like a middling TV drama, it still paints a surprisingly critical picture of the country by showing how suddenly and completely the state can interfere with the behind-closed-doors lives of ordinary citizens.
Philosophy student Sara (Samira Hassanpour) is nervously preparing to catch a 6 a.m. flight to Toronto, where she will live for the next three years while she pursues her doctorate. As she eats what she jokingly refers to as the “Last Supper” with her university professor parents and brother Siavash (Mehrdad Sedighian), she’s interrupted by a call from her close friend Fariba (Mona Farjad) who insists that Sara stop by a final gathering of her peers, and won’t let her say no. Sara gives in, marking the first of a number of bad decisions that will haunt her over the course of the evening.
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The gathering hosted by Fariba and Peyman (Mansour Nasiri) in a spacious, Western-style apartment boasting an odd choice of art, proves larger than expected, with the male and female friends eating pizza and drinking illegal alcohol while discussing some social problems, including high rents. Although Sara really needs to go to the airport, Fariba has planned several music performances and she won’t let Sara out the door before they take place.
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At the 35-minute mark, the doorbell rings, but instead of more friendly faces come to bid Sara goodbye, it’s the police, acting on a citizen report about a disturbance. By now, it’s already touch and go for Sara to make her flight. With the likelihood that the officers will force those at the party to go to the police station, her friends help her to hide in an air duct. The remaining 80 minutes feature surprises best discovered in the moment, during which the tension remains high while the action becomes progressively far-fetched.
Modiri, who also appears as a high-ranking security services hostage negotiator in the film’s final section, inundates his screenplay with aural and visual foreshadowing. The dialogue includes an overwhelming number of mentions of “last” and “final.” However, in a more innovative choice, he eschews the ticking clock device another filmmaker might use to increase the running-out-of-time tension and instead cuts to black between his short scenes, inculcating a sense of finality, claustrophobia and dread.
Apart from Sara, the supposedly smart woman who keeps making stupid choices, the other characters are entirely one-dimensional. As her supportive brother, Sedighian is totally unconvincing in his over-the-top, last-act actions. The low-budget production design wavers between too obvious (Sara framed behind the bars of the locked and sealed apartment) and perplexing (why is Peyman’s apartment furnished with a huge Marilyn Monroe photo, a copy of Vermeer’s The Girl With a Pearl Earring and Da Vinci’s outstretched hands?)
The film opened in Iran this summer, but failed to attract much audience. In a country beset by social problems and where so many less talented writer-directors ape Asghar Farhadi, it’s no wonder that comedies work best at the local box office.
