Modest Reception

An urban man and woman, a large car with a trunk stuffed with big bags of money: they are an unusual apparition in the grim frontier area, to put it mildly. The man and the woman hand out bags of money to the needy they meet on their way. To get rid of the money, they first have to enter into bizarre negotiations. But while their car ploughs on through the terrible landscape, their ‘charity’ acquires an increasingly painful and sadistic character.
Director Mani Haghigi is also an actor. Here, he plays the lead, alongside Taraneh Alidoosti. He is also a scriptwriter, and has written screenplays for Oscar-winner Asgar Farhadi and the Iranian master Dariush Mehrjui, among others.
As in so many Iranian films, Haghigi’s work is charged with social criticism. But he does not translate this criticism into realistic drama. Modest Reception is an absurd and bitingly cynical road movie with a touch of Beckett.