Picture copyrights: Sureh Cinema Development Organization

Venue: India Habitat Centre
Date: 23 June, 2015

The Hindi film industry has undergone significant changes in last couple of years. Consequently we have seen quite a few offbeat films – “Ship of Theseus”, “Lunchbox”, “Bombay Talkies” “Ankhon Dekhi” etc. However none of these films dealt with the abstract.

The Iran Culture House has held some screenings of Iranian cinema at India Habitat Centre. “As Simple As That ” is the second film that we watched in this series. This film is about the loneliness of a young middle class housewife, Tahereh. She has two adorable children and a caring husband. The neighbours like her and she occasionally catches up with friends. She maintains the house well, raises her kids, goes shopping. All in all it’s a full life.

Yet loneliness is not always about lack of people and one can be lonely in a crowded room. Tahereh is bored and lonely. This is what this film is about. No drama, no heartbreaks just the mundane. It lives up to the title “As simple as that “. The climax is open ended and the audience can draw their own conclusions about whether our housewife breaks free from the monotony. Seeing such an apt depiction of life in a very objective manner is new for us. The only Indian film that we can compare is the acclaimed Punjabi Film “Anhe Ghore Da Daan“ by Gurinder Singh.

The director Reza Mirkarimi has depicted a situation that millions go through around the world. Thankfully he hasn’t ventured to pass a judgment or provide a solution. The film perhaps has feminist tones. But that doesn’t come in the way for us to see this as a brilliant example of how poignantly a commonplace phenomenon can be converted it into an abstract poetry on celluloid.