Crimson Gold

In the opening scenes of Crimson Gold we see an attack on a jeweller’s shop in Teheran. The raid gets out of hand, it looks like a hopeless case. Before the film has picked up speed, the attacker has pointed the gun at his own temple, ready to shoot. Panahi then cuts to pizza delivery boy Hussain, fat and bloated as a result of cortisone treatment. Crimson Gold is his tragic story: we see how, together with his future brother-in-law, he is more or less refused service by the fashionable jeweller, who decides on the basis of their appearance that they don’t have enough money for his wares. As a result of this humiliation, the series of fascinating events and colourful peregrinations are started and are led masterfully by Panahi to their climax. Without raising an accusatory finger, and with occasionally bitter humour, Crimson Gold is a universal metaphor for the disastrous relationships between poor and rich. Panahi effortlessly paints the characters with minor, eloquent psychological details; misunderstandings lead almost unnoticeably to justified fury about humiliating experiences in a materialistic world. Panahi’s hero, a silent, worrying war veteran, is someone you can find in any world city. The fact that we know his fate serves to increase the feeling of despair even more.