Crimson Gold

Director: Jafar Panahi

2003 / 95min / DCP

Opening in the midst of a jewelry story robbery gone awry that ends with the would-be stick-up man taking his own life, Panahi’s seething Crimson Gold, something like a thriller turned inside out, proceeds to backpedal to show the circumstances that led the culprit, a pizza deliveryman by trade, to such a desperate precipice. Making his rounds criss-crossing a Tehran where evidence of yawning inequality gaps and a fraying social fabric are everywhere visible is lead actor Hossain Emadeddin, a nonprofessional who in civilian life shared the occupation of the character that he plays here with a palpable sense of listless, ground-down fatigue, and a weariness beneath which churning rage slowly rises to a boil.

Distributor: KimStim Films