Winners

Iran’s Hassan Nazer seeks to emulate ‘Cinema Paradiso’ in a drama made with much love.

Charm is a commodity rare in cinema today but it is certainly to be found in Winners, a film by the Iranian writer/director Hassan Nazer. The fact that this is a work presented by Screen Scotland is explained by Nazer having made a life for himself in Scotland on becoming a refugee in 2000. That he retains his love for his birthplace is clear with Winners being shot on location there, but the love that manifests itself most strongly here is his love of cinema: it suffuses his film and it is what makes Winners appealing. Nevertheless, one cannot avoid the question of just how far that can take you.

The concept behind this film is a strange one, albeit that it is entirely apparent what gave birth to it. Winners is dedicated to four highly regarded Iranian filmmakers (Abbas Kiarostami, Asghar Farhadi, Majid Majidi and Jafar Panahi) and it incorporates many touches that either reference their work or hint at it. If that aspect of Nazer’s film can only be fully appreciated by viewers very familiar with Iranian cinema, there is at the centre of Winners an element that suggests a desire to catch a wider audience than that.

The central figure is a 9-year-old boy, Yahya (Parsa Maghami), a refugee from Afghanistan who is living in an Iranian village with his mother (Malalai Zikria). This youth is mad about cinema and, reflecting Nazer’s own passion for it, he is shown constantly watching movies on TV together with those he can see on DVDs. The latter come to him on loan from Saber (Hossein Abedini) who, together with Nasser (Reza Naji), deals in items dug out of waste deposits and for this purpose utilises kids of whom Yahya is one and his close friend Leyla (Helia Mohammad Khani) is another. One film that Saber plans to hand to Yahya is Cinema Paradiso and referencing that underlines the likelihood that Nazer’s hope is that Winners by concentrating on a boy’s love of cinema will have something of the appeal possessed by that Italian film and which caused it to become a worldwide hit.

However, if that ambition is understandable enough, it cannot conceal the fact that Winners offers a bizarre mix of ingredients. Central to it is the idea that an Oscar statuette destined for a museum should go missing and by chance end up in the possession of young Yahya who, despite his enthusiasm for cinema, thinks of it as a possibly valuable doll-like figure without recognising it as an Oscar. The early scenes in the film show rather clumsily the series of chance events that lead to Yahya and Leyla coming across the Oscar after it has fallen off a bike passing through land near their village. The conditions of life there are hard and this downbeat reality fits oddly within a work which for a while suggests a tale both about and largely addressed to children. But soon it moves on to something else as it reveals most improbably that Nasser and Saber are not who they claim to be. This change in the film’s direction again involves a clash between the actual conditions of life in Iran and the fable-like fantasy of the plot development which nevertheless goes on to comment on the price of fame and to make critical observations about the Iranian film industry including such matters as poor pay for actors.

Trying to mix in all these elements only underlines the fact that, interesting though the individual parts are, they don't really cohere into an effective whole. Certainly, the film gains from its very competent cast including the two engaging child players Parsa Maghami and Helia Mohammad Khani and Nazer is wise in keeping the running length to a sprightly 85 minutes. Even more significant, as I have already indicated, is the warmth that Hassan Nazer brings to the project. But, attractive as that is, I remain unconvinced that the story that he has created hangs together in a way that really satisfies. Nevertheless, film buffs whose focus is not limited to English language cinema will be intrigued by a piece which, not content with featuring an Oscar statuette, also brings into play the Berlin Silver Bear won by Reza Naji for his performance in Majid Majidi’s 2008 film The Song of Sparrows.

MANSEL STIMPSON

Cast: Reza Naji, Hossein Abedini, Parsa Maghami, Helia Mohammad Khani, Malalai Zikria, Erfan Mosaferchi, Shahrzad Kamalzadeh, Mahmoud Jafari, Ezzatollah Ramazani Far, Asghar Semsarzadeh.

Dir Hassan Nazer, Pro Nadira Murray and Paul Welsh, Screenplay Hassan Nazer and Hamed Emami, Ph Arash Seifie Jamadi, Pro Des Mohammad Mohammadi, Ed Dave Arthur, Hassan Nazer and Reza Jouze, Music Mohsen Amini and Mohammad Saeed Shayan.  

Screen Scotland/Sylph Productions/World Film Productions/Edge City Films-Modern Films.
85 mins. UK. 2022. UK Rel: 17 March 2023. Cert. PG.