Initially I decided not to individually acknowledge the specific contributors to the 1001 canon, as I thought that perhaps my opinions would be seen as an attempt to draw comparison between myself and professional critics. Thus, I simply noted Editor Stephen Jay Schneider. However, after seeing Forugh Farrokhzad’s haunting documentary The House is Black (1963), I felt compelled to return to the film’s write-up. Jonathan Rosenbaum’s viewing prompt and description constitute some of the finest prose within the text, and are a prime example of the art of criticism. Like the film he describes, Rosenbaum elicits high emotion from brief text.
At roughly 21 minutes, The house is Black is one of the most complete documentaries I have ever seen. Focusing on the day-to-day happenings within an Iranian leper colony, the humanity evoked from a film about those who have been deemed as barely human is incredible. Though many of the images are disturbing, Farrokhzad manages to find the beauty in these hard lives lived, as simple pleasures such as a board game and a meal with friends take on great emotional weight for the viewer. Perhaps it is telling that Farrokhzad was a poet by trade, and the voiceover that accompanies her images is indeed emotive of the poetic irony of beauty found amongst ugliness.
One thing that fascinates me about films is titling; how a good title can make a movie and a bad one, or bad title reference, can ruin an otherwise decent project. In one of my least favorite moments of my movie-going career I was sitting with friends at Ben Affleck’s directorial debut, the flawed (and horribly titled*) but interesting Gone Baby Gone (2007). When the titular reference was made the man sitting behind me decided to take advantage of this poorly constructed moment by whispering to his wife something to the effect of “oh that’s where they got the title.” I write all of this to preface the excellent titling of this brilliant doc. In the film’s final moments, a brief instant at a school within the colony sums up the view which the outside world takes of this ostracized community. It is a moment that is both frank and beautiful.
Grade: 3 Hats Off
*This seems to be an Affleck trend
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