The best angle from which to describe the aberration of a dictatorship is an area that, according to all logic, should be neutral, extraneous to the dynamics of a regime. But in reality it isn’t. Where, therefore, we can measure up to what level of arbitrariness, abuse, physical and psychological violence a fanatically religious dictatorship can push. Just like the context of sporting competitions (more precisely the World Judo Championships) where the magnificent is set Tatami (Tatami – A woman fighting for freedom2023), unprecedented co-production between Georgia e United States directed by the equally unprecedented duo formed by an Israeli director, Native Guy and by an Iranian filmmaker, naturalized French, Visit Amir Ebrahimi, one of the best contemporary actresses, also co-starring in the role of Maryam. We are at Tbilisiin Georgia, where the athlete Leila Hosseini (Arienne Mandyintense in her dark anguish), coached by her compatriot Maryam, represents theIran. Leila is motivated, trained, resolute, disciplined and wins one match after another. When the match with the Israeli judoka looms, an imperative phone call arrives requiring Maryam to make Leila withdraw, with any excuse. Faced with the coach’s initial hesitation, here are the threats, which will not remain just verbal…
Elham Erfani, Zar Amir Ebrahimi, Guy Nattiv and Mandi sul set
In Tatamiphotographed in beautiful black and white by Todd Martin, three spaces act, two contiguous and the third distant but all held in the same grip: the judo match room, where Leila must discipline her body as best as possible to win the competitions, where she must adopt all her rationality and her method to win with calibrated techniques and movements. Then, behind the scenes in the changing rooms, in the bathroom, in the spaces where she interacts with the coach, the tension that precedes the matches is consumed and which becomes exasperated due to the increasingly ferocious threats of the regime, also provoking a violent conflict with the Maryam herself. And then there is Iran, the house where Leila’s husband watches the meetings on television, where he telephones her and where the violence of the dictatorship materializes, which sends hitmen to pick him up as he already did with his father, beating him and cowardly using it as blackmail to force his daughter to obey, to bend, to submit to the stupid, fanatical, criminal violence of the regime.
Leila and Maryam are two women, therefore, according to the culture of Iranian fundamentalism, they must obey, they are inferior and submissive beings: Tatami tells, with exemplary energy and rigor, the disobedience as emancipation of two women, Leila, and then Maryam who initially, terrified, became her enemy, who revolt against the criminal authority and thus affirm the freedom of being if it were outside of idiotic religious and political dogmatism. The direction by Guy Nattiv and Zar Amir Ebrahimi perfectly combines the two tracks of corporality and psychology, that is, the spasmodic tension, the physical stress that combines with the psychological one under the effect of the coercions exercised at a distance by a regime that was first invisible and then visible in its squalid emissaries.
Roberto Chiesi
Tatami – A woman fighting for freedom
Original title: Tatami
Original language: Persian, English
Country of production: Georgia, USA
Anno: 2023
Duration: 105′
Directed by: Native Guy, Zar Amir Ebrahimi
Screenplay: Elham Erfani, Guy Nattiv
Producer: Adi Ezroni, Mandy Tagger Brockey, Guy Nattiv, Ori Allon, Jaime Ray Newman
Casa di produzione: New Native Pictures, Keshet Studios, WestEnd Films, White Lodge Productions, Maven Screen Media, Tale Runners, Sarke Studios
Distribution in Italian: BiM Distribuzione
Photography: Todd Martin
Editing: Yuval Orr
Scenography: Sofia Kharebashvili, Tamar Guliashvili
Costumes: Sopo Iosebidze
Interpreters and characters
Arienne Mandi: Leila Hosseini
Visit Amir Ebrahimi: Maryam Ghanbari
Jaime Ray Newman: Stacey Travisi
Nadine Marshall: Jean Claire Abriel
Lirr Katz: Shani Lavi
Ash Goldeh: Nader Hosseini
Sina Parvaneh: Azizi
Valeriu Andriuță: Vlad
Mehdi Bajestani: Amar Hossein
Farima Habashizadeha: Justina
Elham Erfani: assistant coach
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2024-04-28 16:05:39
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