The House Is Black

The House Is Black
(Khaneh siah ast)
The House Is Black (خانه سیاه است)
Directed byForugh Farrokhzad
Written byForugh Farrokhzad
Produced byEbrahim Golestan
Release date
  • 1963 (1963)
Running time
22 minutes
CountryIran
LanguagePersian

The House Is Black (Persian: خانه سیاه است) is an acclaimed Iranian documentary short film directed by Forugh Farrokhzad.

The film is a look at life and suffering in a leper colony and focuses on the human condition and the beauty of creation.[1][2] It is spliced with Farrokhzad's narration of quotes from the Old Testament, the Qur'an and her own poetry. The film features footage from the Bababaghi Hospice leper colony.[3] It was the only film she directed before her death in 1967. After shooting this film she adopted a child from the colony, her son Hossein.[4][5]

In 2019, a restored print of the film was debuted at the Venice International Film Festival.[6]

Production

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After a stay in Europe in 1958, Forugh Farrokhzad, most well-known as a poet, returned to Iran and met and began a relationship with filmmaker Ebrahim Golestan. She worked at his film studio, where she gained an opportunity to work as an editor on his documentaries A Fire and Water and Heat, before then directing The House is Black in collaboration with a leprosy charity.[4][6]

Reception

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Although the film attracted little attention outside Iran when released, it has since been recognized as a landmark in Iranian film. Reviewer Eric Henderson described the film as "[o]ne of the prototypal essay films, The House Is Black paved the way for the Iranian New Wave."[7] In 1963, the film was awarded the grand prize for the category documentary at the International Short Film Festival Oberhausen in West Germany.[8] Writing for Off Screen in 2014, Roxanne Varzi noted the influence of the Italian neorealist movement on the film.[9] A 2020 piece for The Guardian compared the isolation depicted in the film to that of the COVID-19 pandemic.[2]

In 2024, director Jonathan Glazer chose to discuss the film on an appearance on the radio show The Treatment on KCRW, describing the film as "so coruscating, so humanist, so political that really, I can't urge you enough to see it".[10]

References

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  1. ^ "The House is Black" – via www.rottentomatoes.com.
  2. ^ a b Bekhrad, Joobin (2020-04-06). "What an Iranian film about a leper colony can teach us about coronavirus". The Guardian. Retrieved 2022-02-05.
  3. ^ Azizi, Mohammad Hossein; Bahadori, Moslem (November 2011). "A History of Leprosy in Iran during the 19th" (PDF). Archives of Iranian Medicine. 14 (6). Iranian Academy of Medical Sciences: 427. Retrieved October 27, 2016.
  4. ^ a b Scutts, Joanna (2020-11-19). "Feminize Your Canon: Forough Farrokhzad". The Paris Review. Retrieved 2022-02-05.
  5. ^ Milani, Farzaneh (December 15, 1999). "Farroḵzād, Forūḡ-zamān". iranicaonline.org. Encyclopaedia Iranica Foundation. Retrieved 2022-02-05.
  6. ^ a b "It Is Only Sound That Remains: Reconstructing Forough Farrokhzad's The House Is Black". South as a State of Mind. Retrieved 2024-05-19.
  7. ^ Eric Henderson (February 22, 2005). "The House Is Black". Slant. Retrieved October 27, 2016.
  8. ^ "Overlooked No More: Forough Farrokhzad, Iranian Poet Who Broke Barriers of Sex and Society". The New York Times. 2019-01-30. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2022-02-05.
  9. ^ Varzi, Roxanne (September 2014). "Pictura Poesis: The interplay of poetry, image and ethnography in Forough Farrokhzad's The House is Black". Off Screen. 18 (9).
  10. ^ "Jonathan Glazer on the power of the camera as witness". KCRW. 2024-03-09.

Notes

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  • Hamid Dabashi, Masters & Masterpieces of Iranian Cinema, 451 p. (Mage Publishers, Washington, DC, 2007); Chapter II, pp. 39–70: Forough Farrokhzad; The House Is Black. ISBN 0-934211-85-X
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