OMG, you guys! 🙄 Another film festival, another movie about… a mortician? Seriously? Abdolreza Kahani, bless his heart, decided to grace us with “Mortician,” starring Nima Sadr as the, uh, titular mortician. 😴 I mean, who hasn’t dreamt of watching a super depressing movie about washing dead bodies in snowy Canada? 🇨🇦❄️ It’s like Kahani woke up one day and thought, “You know what the world needs? More cinematic meditations on death and diaspora!” 💀💸
So, we’ve got Mojtaba (aka Mr. Wash-Wash), played by Nima Sadr, who apparently learned how to act in “A Shrine.” A shrine to what, boredom? Anyway, he’s living the high life in Canada, sending all his loonies 💰 back to his “struggling family” in Iran. Because nothing says “struggle” like forcing your son to embalm strangers in a foreign land. 🌍✈️ He’s all about that pre-Islamic funeral body-washing gig. A real niche market, if you ask me. And of course, the whole thing is shot in a wintery palette. Because what’s more uplifting than a washed-out, grey, soul-crushing landscape? 🌫️
Our main man Mojtaba is super alone, except for his “loose friends” – fellow Iranians who probably only hang out with him to avoid being the next corpse he preps. He’s living out of a suitcase, couch-surfing like some kind of glamorous hobo. 🧳 He makes sure to stop and pray 5 times a day, because apparently God cares about the cleanliness of corpses. 🙏 His friends are like, “Dude, chill! Have a beer 🍺, live a little!” But Mojtaba’s too busy being a pious, suitcase-dwelling mortician. Gotta respect the dedication, I guess. 🙄
We get to watch Mojtaba live his super thrilling life, respected by his community, but totally alone. Sob story alert! 🚨 No place to settle down, far from home… Cue the tiny violins.🎻 He sends all his cash back home (martyr complex, much?), keeping just enough to afford his next prayer rug. Then, the big twist! His boss is all, “We’re shutting down, dude!” OMG! What will Mojtaba do now?! 🤔 He can’t earn the same amount back home, because, you know, Iran has standards. 🇮🇷 So, he gets dragged into the orbit of Jana, because what else is a mortician supposed to do?🤷♀️
Jana, played by real-life singer Gola (because why not cast a singer as a corpse enthusiast?), wants Mojtaba to wash her dead body. Talk about a meet-cute! 🥰 Of course, Mojtaba’s all scandalized. “A woman should do it!” he sputters. “You’re young! You can’t be dying!” 👴 And also, “Why the shady phone calls and secret meetings?” Like, duh, she’s a suicidal diva, Mojtaba. 🙄
Turns out, Jana’s a famous singer and activist who’s, like, super critical of the Iranian government. 🎤 She makes “art” that offends people. The horror! 😱 Mojtaba’s clueless, of course, because he’s too busy praying and washing corpses to keep up with pop culture. His friends fill him in, because that’s what friends are for: explaining why a suicidal singer wants you to scrub her dead body. Jana’s decided to off herself as a protest against the “brutal regime”. So deep. 😔 She wants Mojtaba to film a bunch of videos to be released post-mortem, because nothing says “I’m dead” like a YouTube series. 💀🎬 She also wants him to wash her corpse, because priorities. 🛀
OMG, so meta! 🤯 Apparently, Kahani’s using this movie to make his own political statement. He, Gola, and Sadr are all too familiar with the “methods” of the Iranian regime, which sounds like code for “they’re being watched”. 👁️🗨️ It’s clear that this isn’t just a movie; it’s a “heartfelt” cry for attention. And of course, they’re all putting targets on their backs, because that’s what you do when you’re a serious artiste. 🎯
It’s a “quietly powerful piece of work,” according to people who like quietly powerful pieces of work. It’s also “interesting to anyone who loves the film medium for its approach.” AKA film students with too much time on their hands. Kahani shot the whole thing on phones, because apparently film schools are expensive. 📱 He likes static talking head scenes because who needs action when you have ennui? 😩 He’s “pushing the envelope” of filmmaking, which sounds like a euphemism for “I had no budget.” Even the credits are weird. He doesn’t like regular credits, so he made them an “epilogue” about how the movie was made. Groundbreaking! 🙄
And the award for “Most Depressing Movie About a Mortician” goes to… “Mortician”! 🎉 It won the Sean Connery Prize for Feature Filmmaking Excellence, which comes with a whopping £50,000. That’s a lot of prayer rugs! 🙏 This award is decided by the “film festival’s audiences,” not a panel of judges. Because apparently, the opinions of paying customers are more important than those of professional critics. Who knew? 🤔 So, if you like movies about death, diaspora, and Iranian politics, shot on a phone, then “Mortician” is the movie for you! Just don’t expect to laugh. 😂 Or smile. 😬 Or feel anything other than a profound sense of existential dread. 💀 #Mortician #FilmFestival #IranianCinema #DeathAndTaxes #SoDepressing
Finn McFrame, celebrated satirical mastermind and self-proclaimed “Emperor of Irony,” started his illustrious career as a cinematographer, where his expertise in capturing every single frame of a squirrel stealing a baguette earned him accolades at obscure film festivals.
Born in the glamorous town of Boring, Oregon, Finn grew up with dreams of being a Hollywood director until he realized that satire, not cinema, was his true calling—or at least the one that let him sleep until noon.
Finn McFrame: changing the world, one satirical lens flare at a time.
