The Brick and the Mirror

Driving through the neon-lit streets of pre-revolutionary Teheran, a taxi driver picks up a veiled woman (played by controversial feminist poet Forough Farrokhzad), who leaves her baby on the back seat. He spends all night trying to get rid of the child, driving back and forth between smoky nightclubs and unwilling government organisations, but no one can or wants to help him.
Director and scriptwriter Ebrahim Golestan, one of the most influential filmmakers in Iran before the Islamic Revolution, conceived the film as an allegory for the countless problems and corruption in his country. But also without the political message, this recently restored classic is fascinating because of the humanist point of view Golestan takes when looking at all his characters, the poetic and expressionist camerawork, and the beautiful performance by Tajolmolouk Ahmadi as the taxi driver’s girlfriend, who later in the film emerges as the true hero of the story.

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