Terrestrial Verses
Take a look in advance
In bitingly accurate miniatures, Terrestrial Verses shows the everyday absurdity of life under an authoritarian regime. Whether it is a job interview, the renewal of a driver's license or a birth certificate: for Iranian citizens, every situation culminates in a humiliating confrontation with an ideology that wants to deprive individuals of any notion of personal freedom. Many of the situations are administrative: a man who wants to register the name of his newborn son, an old woman goes to the police because her dog has disappeared, a girl has to answer for being seen with a boy, a young woman goes for a job interview. They all encounter reluctance, pettiness or hypocrisy from the person on the other side of the table.
The visual design of ...
In bitingly accurate miniatures, Terrestrial Verses shows the everyday absurdity of life under an authoritarian regime. Whether it is a job interview, the renewal of a driver's license or a birth certificate: for Iranian citizens, every situation culminates in a humiliating confrontation with an ideology that wants to deprive individuals of any notion of personal freedom. Many of the situations are administrative: a man who wants to register the name of his newborn son, an old woman goes to the police because her dog has disappeared, a girl has to answer for being seen with a boy, a young woman goes for a job interview. They all encounter reluctance, pettiness or hypocrisy from the person on the other side of the table.
The visual setup of the stories is the same each time: the camera is pointed motionlessly at the central character, there is no editing, and of the other people behind the table you only hear the voice. The idea behind this is that all these people are the product of the same ideology. They are all representatives of power, of an authority that guards everything. Not showing them makes it possible to see them all as one anonymous block. From the visible person, on the contrary, you see every reaction. Every detail of their face, their hands, everything they do has meaning. You see how these people are humiliated, how they fight, how they struggle. At the same time, you can also see at times how comically absurd the situation is. Terrestrial Verses is also a black comedy.
Making a film in Iran is also a story of censorship and far-reaching government interference. Because directors Asgari and Alireza had bad experiences applying for a - mandatory - permit from the Iranian government, they made this film without a permit. This was the only way for them to be able to make a film where they did not have to make concessions. Terrestrial Verses was shot in six days, exclusively indoors, with a small crew. After releasing the film outside Iran, Asgari was put under house arrest for eight months.