#diff2014

Dubai International Film Festival Portraits

Dubai International Film Festival Portraits

2014 Dubai International Film Festival - Day 3

In some ways, Happy Times delivers, as promised, an original spin on the old ‘romantic comedy’ genre by giving us something a little more cynical than the typical ‘boy meets girl, boy gets girl’ narrative.

This one is more a ‘boy got girl, how does boy get rid of girl?’ exploration, a sought-after sequel to the plethora of irritating and cliched romantics comedies out there in the market. 

Besides the cynical but cute narrative, there’s also considerable merit to the telling of the tale. The editing and cinematography is distinctive and memorable, with constant flashes of outlandish fantasy woven into the ‘real narrative’, giving the viewer surreal and hilarious interludes at random moments during the course of the film.

However, while Happy Times does deliver a good time, it’s essentially a repeat of the same old stereotypical characters that we’ve seen a hundred times in other romantic comedies… only now they’re facing a break-up rather than a get-together. There’s the scarily clingy, nagging girlfriend whose life revolves around her relationship with the protagonist, and there’s the pathologically commitment-phobic boyfriend  who feels he’s not yet ready to either marry or to break up, and there’s his group of ‘bros’ who somehow even more pathetic at relationships and relationship advice than even our main protagonist.

 It’s decidedly ironic that, for a film genre that’s so often dismissed as ‘chick flicks’, the famous romantic-comedy category features very few well developed female characters. Most films from this genre generally have narratives that are told solely through the male gaze and narrator, and surprisingly few of them pass the Bechdel Test. A viewer sometimes wonders just who these movies are being made for sometimes.

 It would have been interesting to have seen Happy Times go a little further beyond the typical romantic comedy and tread some truly new ground rather than give a slightly more creative twist to the old stories. But Happy Times is a harmless good time that promises a bit of fun, even if it’s forgotten within a week.

  Reviewed by Saba Siddiqi

Snow is another example in Iran’s growing fascination with the ‘private vs. the public’ life, where more films are being released that take the camera into the homes delving into the domestic intimacies that might be troubling individual families. 

Snow heightens that psychological intensity of family drama by focusing all the attention on a single family in a single day in one single house.

Snow is a black-comedy drama about a family that is on the verge of bankruptcy and scandal, struggling to survive through one more day maintaining a veneer of respectability; just until their only daughter’s marriage contract has been confirmed.

Working both together and at odds with one another, the mother and her children maintain a siege from creditors, gossipers and ex-husbands until the daughter’s future has been financially secured with a promise of marriage to an Iranian engineer working abroad.

The film captures a natural family dynamic, with siblings who love and support each other, but cannot stop their own self-destructive impulses from sabotaging themselves and the rest of the family. And, of course, the parents who both maintain tight discipline and focus in the household and yet are shown to be enabling their children’s bad habits.

The interesting thing about this film is the equal amount of narrative initiative and power given to both men and women. Every family member is given a moment to shine and break; to show both strength and weakness; and ultimately to show us how it takes several individual human components to create either a victory or a disaster.

Snow was a highly memorable film and a stand out at the festival this year. Great dialogue, well developed characters, lovely cinematography and excellent production design. Most of all, by containing all the action and narrative within the narrow passages of a single house, Snow preserved and enhanced the psychological intensity of the intimate claustrophobia that one uncomfortably associates with ‘family drama’, both as a film genre, and as a general concept.

Reviewed by Saba Siddiqi