INTERVIEW: Dornaz Hajiha on her piercing family drama | Leiden IFF

Haleh and Amir are a middle-class, married couple in Iran. Their life together gets challenged when their 4-year-old boy stops talking, for no apparent reason. Their care for their son manifests in a series of doctors’ visits and constant disputes between them.

The camera hardly ever leaves the faces of the trio. Naturally and inevitably, it sets the lights for the wonderful dance performance of the three rising stars. We are close witnesses of the emotions and the buzzing that drive this family from the therapy rooms to their rides to their home. Gradually, the couple drifts apart into opposing poles over the right approach to parent the child. There is plenty of room for obsessions to build up and to explode into caprice and behavioural mannerisms, leaving the child at the mercy of his own reaction.

‘Like a Fish on the Moon’ is a realistic tale of the contemporary family complex. It is set in Iran, but similarities to European household standards are apparent. Underneath the obvious effects of current medical narratives and teachings, this film speaks to the core of the archetypical (maternal) grit or psychosis, and gives space for the possibilities of junior’s rationale to be in good consideration.

Dornaz Hajiha’s film was rightfully part of the ‘First Feature Competition’ section of the Leiden International Film Festival, 2022. Right after the fourth and final screening of the film, we met Dornaz at the iconic Trianon theatre to get her views on her story.

Your film is a close-up of a nuclear family. We hardly see anyone else on your shots. It starts with the child being silent, and follows the parents in their attempt to help him. Could you explain your theme choice?

Many parts of the film are about the mother and the son. And of course, there are connections to the pressure this woman is facing in particular. But for me, it is more about the triangle: mother, son and father. I like triangles in relationships as subjects in movies. Because they are more complicated. So, in the end, it is about the woman and the son, the woman and the man, the man and the son; and all of them together. On the surface, we see that the story is about the kid. But personally, I am interested in the relationship of the couple. The kid is the one bringing up the problems underneath.

Most of the shots are actually very close to them. I made the choice to isolate them. I wanted to show their feelings within the suffocating situation they are in. At one point, they are revealed to us. We see them in long shots. At this point there is peace. They are not fighting anymore. I like to see my film at this abstract level, too. As if it is an abstract painting, where we see the feeling, not the actual thing.

Obviously, the perspective of the muted child is left to be discovered by the audience. Silence has always been a strong symbol of expressing inner or personal struggles. If you could detach yourself from the making of the film, what is your reading of the child’s perspective?

The film begins with the kid already muted. As the parents said, we don’t know why. It just happened. From the child’s perspective, he didn’t just decide to go silent, and he is not reacting to something. I think he just doesn’t feel like talking. He just likes to communicate in other ways.

If I could see this film as not the one who wrote it, I would say that the kid wants to be free. In the way that he wants to be in peace. He doesn’t want to do what life imposes on him. He doesn’t want to talk. Close to the end of the film, we see him looking somewhere at the sky or the sun (we don’t see what he sees). I would say he has some imaginations, but I wouldn’t consider them childish imaginations. He just wants the parents to let him be.

Your title is a simile. Who is ‘the fish’ and where is ‘the moon’?

The fish belongs to the sea. When you force the fish to live on a planet that doesn’t belong to, it’s suffocating. The fish wouldn’t breathe and be alive elsewhere. In the case of the film, the fish is the son. And the moon is the whole world, before the final scene on the beach. In this scene, I tried to have wider shots, so to let them access another world. The sea, for the kid, is his one peaceful world. We see that the parents kind of enter his silent world, after the beach scene. While the moon is his daily life and the doctors, that are pushing him to obey.

You made your film in Iran. Now, you are traveling for screenings in Europe. What are the different reactions of the audiences?

The premiere of the film was in Karlovy Vary IFF. Some Iranian people watched it there, and they all connected with the film, especially with the ending. The foreign audience had these connections as well. I didn’t expect that. Since I am the one who made the film, I couldn’t predict if it could work outside Iran. But to be more detailed, some of them had doubts, for example about the approach of the parents to take the kid to psychologists. I am not sure if this is because of cultural differences or just a different mindset.

Since this was your first feature film, what knowledge did you bring with you from working with short films?

I have worked with the two main actors before, in one of my short films. That was actually their first acting experience. Sepidar Tari has graduated from an acting school, but Shahdiyar Shakiba is not a professional actor. With this film, I had a new working style. I wrote the script, but they didn’t receive it, and they never saw it. They didn’t know anything about the story. I was rehearsing with them for 7 to 8 months. We were building a relationship, while I was guiding them towards the characters. Eventually, they adjusted to the script I wrote.

What does it mean for a young filmmaker to produce such a demanding film?

Since this was my first feature film, I wanted to have it personal and independent. So I worked with a local producer and not with a big budget. My approach for the next film is different. My producer is not from Iran. We have already begun working on it. We got funding from Torino Film Lab, and we won a pitching award in Busan, Korea. So, the next film will be different, I have more time and funding.

 

Like a Fish on the Moon

2022, Country: Iran | 78 mins | Director/Writer: Dornaz Hajiha | Stars:
Sepidar Tari, Shahdiyar Shakiba, Ali Ahmadi

17th Leiden International Film Festival, 3-13 November 2022, the Netherlands

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