It is that strange story, recounting the aftermath of the war that Tehran had torn in the 1980s. It is the story of that woman called Shidaho who decided to stay in the city with her daughter. Things started to change completely as evil began to chase their house, trying to own her daughter in mysterious circumstances. It is a state of terror that will be experienced by both the woman and her daughter, but Chidaho has no choice but to face these forces if she wants to save her daughter from that disaster.
Did you honestly doubt that peeling duct tape and a sheet of printed fabric, if handled with imaginative brio, could be as frightening as any ten-million-dollar monster? O ye of little faith.
The most consistent fear in Anvari's film is that of being a mother and daughter alone in a world that won't help or respect you. Far more so than djinn, this is a fear that doesn't easily dissipate.
Anvari makes great use of this highly specific time and setting -- the air raids are always unnerving and one sequence in which Shideh runs into the empty streets of Tehran in a panic is just terrific.
A sinister tapestry of urban unease and feminist fury that turns an ordinary domestic setting into a place of skulking terror. Original and deeply creepy.
