Mohammad Rasoulof’s scathing drama about corruption in Iran is striking in its blunt rage, if somewhat exasperating in its monotony.
The films of Mohammad Rasoulof often tell stories of ordinary Iranians cornered within a censorious government. It’s a theme with personal import for Rasoulof, who, since 2010, has faced several arrests and bans for his cinematic critiques of the Iranian state.
Where the 2021 film “There Is No Evil” portrayed the moral absurdities of capital punishment, “A Man of Integrity” takes a broader view, examining how corruption has permeated everyday Iranian life. Here, Rasoulof delivers his diagnosis with a bluntness that is striking in its rage, if somewhat exasperating in its monotony.
Reza (Reza Akhlaghirad), a goldfish farmer with a rebellious streak, lives in the countryside in North Iran. His isolated rural lifestyle is a deliberate choice: an attempt to evade an orthodox yet opportunistic social system, where, as one character puts it, you either become the oppressor or the oppressed.
But a shady new corporation, referred to mysteriously as “The Company,” has upset the local bucolic balance. Its operators have their eyes on Reza’s land, and they resort to extortionary tricks — including poisoning his goldfish — to get him to give it up. As Reza and his wife, Hadis (a superb Soudabeh Beizaee), try various personal, legal and not-so-legal means of recourse, they encounter a Kafkaesque labyrinth of dead ends, greasy palms and sinister violence.
Employing minimal background music and a bleak, blue-gray color palette, Rasoulof evokes a sense of nihilism that is as suffocating as it is affecting. Every narrative twist — including some rather contrived mafia-thriller turns — hammers home the same point: that it’s hard to be a good man in a bad system. Given the system Rasoulof works within (and against), however, it’s a message well worth repeating.
A Man of Integrity
Rated PG-13 for scenes of drug use, violence and general existential bleakness. In Farsi, with subtitles. Running time: 1 hour 53 minutes. In theaters.
Source: Movies - nytimes.com
