Directed by Babak Anvari, 2016, 84 minutes

As Iraqi missiles fall on Iran during the War of the Cities in the late 1980s the Revolutionary government consolidates its control over the population and Sideh (Narges Rashidi) is confined with her family in their Tehran apartment. She becomes increasingly concerned about the health of her young daughter Dorsa (Avin Manshadi) who is convinced that something has invaded their home.

Born in Tehran, Babak Anvari brings singular eloquence and passion to his debut. ‘Under the Shadow’ portrays a city under extreme duress: Religious police patrol the streets, and any signs of western influence are viewed with acute suspicion. Anvari uses domestic detail to help us understand the fear and demoralisation of a city at war. Sideh takes refuge from an increasingly repressive regime at home, terrified that visitors may discover her VCR and accuse her of subversion. Threatened by revolutionary guards whilst on the street, she risks a flogging when she flees her haunted home without her hijab. ‘Under the Shadow’ offers a rare glimpse inside this closed, much misunderstood society. Characterisation is realistic and nuanced: Sideh is a reluctant parent, haunted by memories of her recently deceased mother who seems to pass judgement on her failures. Her medical career has been curtailed on account of her left-wing radicalism during the revolution. Forced into housebound domesticity, Sideh displaces her frustration onto her family. She envies her husband Iraj (Bobby Naderi) who has been allowed to continue his career as a doctor, but he cannot understand her need for more than home and family. Sideh is a caring mother, but she struggles to show affection and when Iraj is posted to the front-line Dorsa has only her doll for comfort. Sideh cannot countenance a supernatural interpretation of her daughter’s fears because it undermines both the rationality of her medical training and the secular worldview that drives her opposition to the regime.

Bombarded by a constant diet of belligerent propaganda Sideh rejects the religious fervour that promotes martyrdom and practices gender oppression. Instead, she clings to fragments of western culture that recall a more liberal time. The televised parades and strident calls to arms are set against Jane Fonda’s workout and Alison Moyet. When a bomb breaks through the roof of their apartment building the last, comforting vestiges of modernity are stripped away. Mother and daughter are left alone under a midnight sky at the mercy of desert winds, much like the ancient nomads that shivered under canvas and told tales of the djinn, elemental demons of the air. A deeply unsettling presence, the djinn initially appear playful rather than malign. They seem to offer Dorsa some of the nurture and attention that her mother cannot give. Anvari uses digital effects with care to conjure these disturbingly inscrutable and protean creatures. Neither male nor female, maternal but rapacious they crave corporeality and seek only to possess the bodies of the living. These shrouded entities suggest purdah or mourning, a distorted reflection of the orthodox, gendered uniform that represents, for Sideh, misogynistic authority.

As the title suggests, ‘Under the Shadow’ is a claustrophobic and murky film, most of the action takes place in or around the family home. Its windows, crossed with adhesive tape (to inhibit shatter in a bomb blast), suggest warnings of plague or taboo marks and emphasise the family’s isolation. The apartment’s constricted spaces and the intense focus on intimate family relationships put the onus on performance. Sideh and Dorsa appear in almost every scene and must hold the audience’s attention: Narges Rashidi convinces as a mother under intense pressure who must wrestle with her own demons as well those that may have invaded her home; despite her hard and unapproachable demeanour she wins audience sympathy as the film progresses with her steely pragmatism. Avin Manshadi delivers a remarkably assured performance which won a well-deserved British Independent Film Award for best actress in 2016. The screenplay is concise, with little extraneous dialogue and Anvari courageously avoids translating his script into more saleable English, encouraging us to listen to the ancient and euphonic rhythms of Farsi. His decision to use original language heightens ‘Under the Shadows’ immediacy and sense of authenticity.

Anvari handles genre tropes with confidence to make his own statements and reinvigorate tired horror cliché. On release the film was compared to Jennifer Kent’s ‘Babadook’ (2014) but any similarities are superficial. Both films have fraught parent-child relationships as their centre, but ‘Babadook’ with its painterly style and vivid colours feels more contrived, despite its grim subject matter. In contrast Anvari favours an umbrageous, gritty texture. There are narrative echoes of both M R James, and Henry James here but ‘Under the Shadow’ is best viewed as an ambitious thematic reconfiguration of William Friedkin and William Peter Blatty’s ‘The Exorcist’ (1973). Anvari’s djinn and Blatty’s demonic protagonist Pazuzu share a similar cultural heritage, but the socio-political context has changed. For viewers in the early seventies who felt threatened by sixties counterculture and Watergate sleaze ‘The Exorcist’ articulated a longing for spiritual and social certitude, a promise that when science and medicine fail, God and church will defend the innocent if we keep faith. Anvari’s film, created in the long shadow of the Twin Towers is better suited to a society struggling with religious and political disillusionment. Sideh cannot depend on divine aid or the religious authorities for help when facing supernatural assault. Instead, she must rely on level-headed rationality and overcome self-doubt within the confines of an unsympathetic patriarchal theocracy. Hard-won personal freedom can cut both ways, in a society that promotes individualism and mistrusts institutions (often with good cause) we must learn to face our demons alone. The film’s disturbing final image leaves the debate between faith and reason unresolved.

The Iran-Iraq War continued for eight years and cost many lives. The Iranians deployed thousands of Basij (child soldiers) and waves of Pasdaran volunteers in suicidal offensives urged on by the promise of martyrdom; Iraq used chemical weapons against its own Kurdish population. Frightened of fundamentalist Islam gaining ground in the region, Russia and the Unites States supported Iraq with money and weapons, but the war ended in stalemate and the combatants were left economically crippled. Governments on both sides took advantage of the conflict to stifle political opposition and reinforce control over their own citizens. For many in the affluent west this was just another middle eastern war on the television news. ‘Under the Shadow’ shows us the effects of this distant conflict up close and humanises those too often demonised as refugees or terrorists by reactionary news media. ‘Under the Shadow’ is a salutary reminder that persecution as well as economic necessity force ordinary people to emigrate. When one of Sideh’s neighbours decides to flee to Europe she makes it clear that she is leaving her homeland with great reluctance and regret, not simply going on holiday or shopping for welfare payments. Another neighbour flees with her family to Kurdistan which, as Sideh point out, hardly represents a safe haven.

Visually austere and uncompromising, ‘Under the Shadow’ is also taut and rigorously paced. realistic performances draw us into a stifling and severe regime. Although it has much to teach us about the dangers of religious and political fundamentalism it never preaches, instead we are left to wonder how we would cope if the freedoms that we take for granted were taken away. Fantasy and supernatural cinema are often dismissed as escapist fantasy; ‘Under the Shadow’ demonstrates that this need not be the case.

Quotes:

“Djinn belong to fairytales. This is not “A Thousand and One Nights.” Sideh (Narges Rashidi)

“The ‘winds’ refer to mysterious, ethereal and magical forces which can be anywhere…where these is fear and anxiety the ‘winds’ blow”  G H Sa’idi from ‘Ahl-I Hava’ (The People of the Air)

Connections

Film

‘The Exorcist’ directed by William Friedkin (1973)

‘The Arabian Nights’ directed by Pier Paolo Pasolini (1974)

‘The Devil’s Backbone’ directed by Guillermo Del Toro (2001)

‘Session 9’ directed by Brad Anderson (2001)

‘Persepolis’ directed by Marjane Satrapi and Vincent Paronnaud (2007)

‘Babadook’ directed by Jennifer Kent (2014)

‘A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night’ directed by Ana Lily Amirpour (2014)

‘His House’ directed by Remi Weekes (2020)

Reading

G H Sa’idi, Ahl-I Hava (The People of the Air), Amirkabir, Tehran, 1967

Robert Irwin, The Arabian Nights: A Companion, Allen Lane, 1994

Efraim Karsh, The Iran-Iraq War 1980-1988 (Essential Histories), Osprey, 2002, ISBN 1841763713

Radio

BBC Radio 4: ‘In Our Time’ 18th October 2007 – The Arabian Nights