Downpour

1972 [PERSIAN]

Action / Comedy / Drama / Romance

14
Rotten Tomatoes Audience - Upright 80%
IMDb Rating 7.2/10 10 1202 1.2K
720p.BLU 1080p.BLU
1.16 GB
988*720
Persian 2.0
NR
23.976 fps
2 hr 10 min
Seeds 1
2.16 GB
1472*1072
Persian 2.0
NR
23.976 fps
2 hr 10 min
Seeds 2

Movie Reviews

Reviewed by frankde-jong 8 / 10

Good Iranian picture from the pre Islamic period

One of the films that started my love for cinema at the end of the eighties was "Bashu, the little stranger" (1989, Bahram Beyzaie). It felt a sort of homecoming when I recently watched "Downpour" (1972) from the same (little known) Iranian director.At the beginning of Downpour a teacher arrives in a (poor) neighborhood of Tehran, at the end he leaves. In between we see the interaction with especially a young woman but also with his pupils, his colleagues and the rest of the neighborhood.In this respect the film has a flavour of "Teorema" (1968, Pier Paolo Pasolini), but this flavour comes with a lot of differences.In "Teorema" the outsider is a rather mysterious person. In "Downpour" main character Hekmati (Parviz Fanizadeh) is very likable.In "Teorema" the outsider interacts with only the members of one family and all his interactions have an erotic connotation. In "Downpour" the interactions are with a whole neighborhoodand and have different connotations.The Iranian new wave began with directors such as Abbas Kiarostami and Moshsen Makhmalbaf. Most of their films I have seen are from after the Islamic revolution. Up till "Downpour" I had only seen one Iranian film from before the revolution ("The cow" (1969, Dariush Mehrjui)). The most obvious difference is of course the women's dresses, but in "Downpour" there is more. During the scene of the school musical there is a mysterious man in the audience wearing sunglasses. According to some reviewers this is an implicit reference to the SAVAK, the secret police of the Shah. I am convinced I missed many other references to Iranian politics in these days. What for instance do the street musicians stand for that we see regularly walking through the city, without an obvious relationship with the rest of the plot?With respect to Atefeh (Parvaneh Massoumi), the love interest of Hekmati, not only her clothes are remarkable (according to Islamic standards) but also the fact that she is an (economically) independent woman. In this respect there are similarities to "Bashu", which was made in the Islamic period. In "Bashu" Bashu is the stranger and Naii (Susan Taslimi) is the strong woman.
Reviewed by ebram_golhashem 7 / 10

A Great Romance but Regular Drama!!!

I should call this movie a romantic movie, a romance between two people with nice people around them. We have no Romeo And Juliette in this film. Everyone is nice, all the people of the city are happy, there is only a tragedy and its competitive love. The children made this film like a children movie and let me tell you that school is such a important feature for representing the lovers and their romance. Parviz Fannizadeh is my favorite Iranian actor and he played his role nicely attractive. He won the best leading role of the year from the main film festival of Iran before the Islamic Revolution, Sepas Film Festival. The film is Bahrain Beyzayi's second cinematic experience and it was really good and critically acclaimed, even tho it wasn't a successful commercially. It has so many scenes that I didn't like and I prefer to remove from the script but it's Beyzayi and his special scenarios. Even tho I think that it was a good film generally... .
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