How much does the fact of doing right things require effort?
This seems to be the fundamental question in Wednesday, May 9, the cinematographic debut of the Iranian Vahid Jalilvand. The weight of charity is at the center of the movie, set up as a triptyque that tells three stories. The first two narrations are about two women in financial difficulties, who take the opportunity of a public advertisement, published by a mysterious benefactor, who make 10.000 dollars available for the unlucky person who will gain the sum after a meeting.
The hopeful women are only two among the hundreds outcasts, sick people, unemployed and other that rise to that challenge, that will probably lead more pain than joys to the improvised philanthropist, Jalal, a professor who still lives in the shadow of a past mourning and who is full of a guilt that is the base of his donation.
Some of the ones who come at his door are Setareh, fresh pregnant bride who looks for money to get his husband released from prison, and Leila, ex girl-friend of Jalal who now looks after her invalid husband and that needs money for an expensive operation that could solve his health problems. Jalal’s dilemma is just the last of the dramas of the movie, chronologically speaking, because the film portrays a country marked by striking contrast, by an ocean of outcasts whose only possibility to get better is on the shoulder of few and keen charitable people who compensate for government’s errors. Jalilvand’s clean direction is completely at the service of the story, that tells with a lucid look about the difficulties of a choice that, instead of relieving Jalal from pain, makes it growing, creating a domestic tension that isolates him even more, and catches the audience’s attention thanks to a simple story yet flawless in its joints and its vivid human representation, supported by a cast of extraordinarily versatile and incisive actors. It is an interesting and evocative debut, which shines among the movies in Horizons section, that this year is not surprising us like it did in the past editions.
By Alessia Pelonzi
Photos by Alessio Costantino
Translation by Bianca Baroni
In collaboration with Badtaste.it
