Shatranj-e baad / Chess of the Wind (2020 restoration by The Film Foundation's World Cinema Project and Cineteca di Bologna)

Mohammed Reza Aslani: شطرنج باد / Shatranj-e baad / Chess of the Wind (IR 1976).

Mohammed Reza Aslani: شطرنج باد / Shatranj-e baad / Chess of the Wind (IR 1976).

شطرنج باد / The Chess Game of the Wind
    IR 1976. Director: Mohammad Reza Aslani. 93 min
    Scen.: Mohammad Reza Aslani. F.: Houshang Baharlou. M.: Abbas Ganjavi. Scgf.: Houri Etesam. Mus.: Sheyda Gharachedaghi.
    Int.: Fakhri Khorvash, Shohreh Aghdashloo, Shahram Golchin, Mohamad Ali Keshavarz, Hamid Taati, Akbar Zanjanpour.
    Prod.: Bahman Farmanara per Sherkat-e Gostaresh-e Sanaye Cinema-e. DCP. Col.
    Unreleased in Finland.
    Bologna: Il Cinema Ritrovato: Cinemalibero
    Copy from: The Film Foundation
    Restored in 4K in 2020 by The Film Foundation’s World Cinema Project and Cineteca di Bologna from the original 35 mm camera and sound negatives at L’Image Retrouvée laboratory (Paris) in collaboration with Mohammad Reza and Gita Aslani, with funding provided by the Hobson / Lucas Family Foundation
    In Farsi with English subtitles by Ehsan Khoshbakht on the DCP, e-subtitles in Italian by Sub-Ti Londra.
    Introduce Gita Aslani Shahrestani (the director’s daughter) (in French).
    After the screening Gita Aslani Shahrestani read her father's letter to us from her mobile phone.
    Viewed at Cinema Arlecchino, 27 Aug 2020.

Gita Aslani Shahrestani (Il Cinema Ritrovato 2020): "Shatranj-e Baad might be one of the most emblematic films in the history of Iranian cinema, even though its visibility was limited to a disastrous preview at Tehran International Film Festival in 1976. Due to an artistic conflict between Aslani and the festival curator, the projection was sabotaged, its reels were disrupted and projector malfunctioned. The critics walked out during the screening, as did the jury who pulled the film out of the competition. Instantly deemed elitist, the film was refused by all the distributors. Discouraged, the producer didn’t bother sending the film to the international festivals. In subsequent private showings, Henri Langlois, Roberto Rossellini and Satyajit Ray had the opportunity to see the film in proper condition and congratulated the young director. After that, Shatranj-e Baad, was never screened again. Following the establishment of the Islamic government in 1979, the film was banned because of its non-Islamic content and the reels were subsequently declared lost. There was only a censored VHS, of very poor quality, circulating through informal channels. Although the film rested in obscurity for a long time, its aesthetic value was rediscovered in 2000 by a new generation of critics and cinéphiles who classed it as one of Iran’s lost cinematic masterpieces. Shatranj-e Baad is a singular film, at the confluence of the aesthetics of Visconti and Bresson. The influence of painting can be found in each shot and the careful screenplay toys with multiple plot twists. It was only in 2015 that Aslani found the negatives of Shatranj-e Baad, quite by chance at a flea-market for vintage film costumes and accessories. He bought the reels and immediately sent them to France where they could safely be restored. Now we can fully rediscover all the originality and modernity of this fascinating film, which has spent almost 45 years in the shadows." Gita Aslani Shahrestani (Il Cinema Ritrovato 2020)

AA: Miraculously retrieved from oblivion, a beautifully restored copy of Chess of the Wind, a film that got sidetracked at the time of its intended premiere.

Made by Mohammad Reza Aslani, a modernist poet of the Iranian New Wave, who was also caught in the Iranian cinema's New Wave.

Chess of the Wind is a synthesis of many inspirations. A poetic mode is overwhelming: an imagist way of address, highly compressed, often proceeding via ellipsis.

The imagist address is profoundly influenced by painting, emphasized by Gita Aslani Shahrestani in her introduction, such as Persian miniatures and Vermeer lighting.

The affection to the art of the Persian miniature brings us to Sergei Paradjanov territory. There is a similarity in the joy of light and refined colour, but especially in the penchant to tableaux vivants. Of films that I have recently (re)visited I'm thinking about Nran guyne by Paradjanov and The Day I Became a Woman by Marzieh Meshkini.

Then there is the detective story. Having seen recently Knives Out by Rian Johnson and The Warden by Nima Javidi I have been reminded that the roots of the detective story are Persian: "The Three Apples" in One Thousand and One Nights. The detective story provides the sujet (the story of the investigation) and the fabula (the story of the crime).

The concept belongs to the "gaslighting" lineage of mystery dramas: the lady of the house must be made mad so that her property can be appropriated. We know this from films such as, inevitably, Gaslight (Thorold Dickinson, 1940, and George Cukor, 1944), and also Les Diaboliques. The fabula plot is similar, but Chess of the Wind is an image-driven, not a plot-driven movie.

Fundamentally, Chess of the Wind is a tragedy of ownership, property and succession, known since the dawn of narrative, Hesiod's Works and Days, and stories of the Bible. This game of chess has a tactical, strategic and cosmic dimension.

The enchanting score has been composed by the prominent woman composer Sheyda Gharachedaghi known for several distinguished films including Ragbar / Downpour. There is a distinctive Persian sound, intriguing drum beats, and affinities with jazz.

"Shatranj ke khilari" (The Chess Players), the title of Satyajit Ray's film, I hear in my mind as uttered by Tarsem, when he visited Helsinki and passed by the Kaivopuisto Chess Park. I learn that there are three main international names for the game: chess, shakh, and shatranj, the last-mentioned known in Hindi, Punjabi, Persian, Arabic and Turkish. Tarsem also loves Paradjanov, so there is a Persian-Armenian-Georgian-Punjabi family connection in this style of imagery.

The refined colour palette of the cinematography of Houshang Baharlou has been preserved in the subtle restoration process leading to this beautiful DCP from The Film Foundation.