In director Ali Mosaffa’s psychological story, his wife in real life, Leila Hatami, pretty much plays herself – a beautiful and gifted Iranian film star.
But the male focus of the story is the heroine’s recently deceased husband Koshrow, who becomes the somewhat unreliable narrator of a playful and delicately ironic story about a complicated but loving marital relationship.
Mosaffa’s Film starts with Leili facing the camera, dressed like a woman in mourning, trying to tell someone she can’t even recall his face and bursting into laughter every time the she does it.
Then her husband, Koshrow, who turns out to be already dead, starts spinning out his version of the plot, while he is shown on screen riding his skateboard down a dangerously steep street.
For the rest of the film, this uneasy couple back and forth in time and it is understood that Leili is a movie actress and that her hysterical bursts of uncalled mirth take place in front of the camera and are ruining a scene she is supposed to play in the film being shot inside the film.
The plot of the film is inspired by Tolstoy’s Death of Ivan Ilitch and the end of James Joyce’s The Dead. -- Payvand.com
Karlovy Vary (Competition): Best Actress, FIPRESCI Prize, AFI FEST (Breakthrough)
Read about this film
Title: The Last Step | Peleh Akhar (2012)
Directed by: Ali Mosaffa
Date of birth: 1 December 1966, Teheran, Iran
Writing credits:
Ali Mosaffa
Music by: Alireza Alavian (SOUND)
Country: Iran
Language: Farsi
Color: Color
Runtime: 88 min.