Iranian born director Babak Anvari has dug deep into his own life story for the setting of his first directorial feature, Under the Shadow. He was born in the middle of the Iran/Iraq war, and his doctor father would regularly be posted to different locations, leaving the anxious Anvari and his brother alone in the house with their mother for long stretches of time.
This scenario forms the basis for a tense and genuinely frightening movie about isolation, the ever present threat of conflict (the film is set in Tehran) and the supernatural. The story introduces us to Shideh, who is mother to a sweet little girl called Dorsa. As the film opens Shideh's request to return to medical school has just been turned down because of her previous record of political activity. Her disappointment at this decision is compounded by her husband Iraj, a qualified doctor, who is dismissive of her aspirations, wanting her to devote more time to being a mother. Tensions in the family, already strained because of money issues, escalate when Iraj is given a military posting to a high-conflict area. Left alone in their flat, Dorsa forms a friendship with a strange orphan boy living in another apartment, and as a result starts talking about the djinn, an evil spirit who may be coming to hurt them. As a progressive woman Shideh is dismissive of this, but events in the flat quickly and terrifyingly escalate, focusing on the now fever-ridden Dorsa, gradually leading her to accept the truth about a demonic presence.
Narges Rashidi as Shideh |
So when then the supernatural elements start to creep in, just over half way through the film, tension is already at breaking point. The frightening events of the second half of the film are made worse by a creeping realisation that the demonic presence - which reveals itself to Dorsa first in an attempt to drive a wedge between mother and daughter - is possibly here as punishment for Sideh's cultural transgression. Anvari cleverly bases his demon on Iranian belief; as one of the characters says, the djinn, a supernatural creature with roots in Arabic and middle eastern mythology, is frequently mentioned in the Quran. One could argue that this is an attempt to rise above the standard fright flick monster. But fear not, he's quite capable of delivering good old fashioned scares, including a 'jump' moment that caused one person in my screening to scream, a rare event in hardened critic circles.
Avin Manshadi as Dorsa |
In interviews Babak Anvari has mentioned that he's not a fan of horror films per se, and audiences shouldn't expect his next film to be Under the Shadow 2 or even a film within the same genre. I think that's probably wise, because it would hard to top this as one of the tensest scariest films I've seen for quite some time. But whatever it is, his next film will be eagerly anticipated.
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