Blockbuster* has a new promotion in which you pay $15 ($25 normally) and are able to rent as many movies you want in a month (three at a time; $20 if you want new releases). I sometimes have problems actually finding something I want to rent, so this helped me in particular. It also allows me to rent questionable movies, and not be too upset given that I do not have to pay to usual five bucks.
Good thing, since the first few movies I rented was of this caliber. Still, you are able to get some pearls among all those oysters, including those new releases that only have one or two copies. Maryam was one of those rental gems, a change of pace, a charming little movie. The sort that make indies, rentals, and cable worth it. A film that might be a bit rough around the edges, but have certain special qualities that makes it a nice cinematic experience.
Maryam concerns a teenage Iranian girl, who is a full-blooded American growing up in the suburbs, her few years in Iran mostly long forgotten. She, along with many others, has to face up to that heritage when a fundamentalist minded cousin (whose parents died, his father under somewhat mysterious circumstances) comes to stay with her family. And, did I mention, it is 1979, the shah is in a nearby New York City hospital, and the hostage crisis is about to erupt?
The film reminds one a bit of an Afternoon Special, for those who remember those uplifting little dramas that aired around 4PM. It is dramatically obvious at certain points, perhaps a sign that it is the writer/director's first film, and I felt the non-Iranians were generally not really three-dimensional characters. This is upsetting for dramatic reasons, more so than I am after all talking about myself here. All the same, there was enough truth to the characters, real emotions, and the leads were so well portrayed, that it was well worth watching.
There were many levels to the film, though it was told largely through Mary's (as she called, except by her cousin Ali) point of view. And, this point of view is interesting in part because it is sort of the same as the country at large. She doesn't quite understand why religious and political matters are so important, so personal to Ali and certain others. Are we not like this as well? Consider how strong political feelings are demeaned as simplistic "Bush hating" or how those with strong religious feelings (including lack thereof, such as atheists) is seemed as kind of weird.
The director (commentary provided on DVD) noted he toned down some of the situations and characters (for instance, anti-Iranian prejudice is portrayed, but not as harshly as it might have been) because he wanted the film to focus on the character's emotions. And, this too was richly portrayed by the actors, included Ali, who one might think would be a mostly negative character. Not so -- from early on, we understand his sense of loss and loneliness, his need to find something to hang on to. Ali's inner humanity is never totally forgotten, even when he does things we disprove.
Though we see a bit of it from the neighbors, especially in a telling moment between the wives, this emotional complexity is lacking among the non-Iranian cast. And, this is unfortunate, though perhaps understandable (this might have been a matter of the writer/director not being familiar enough with their emotional universe, so to speak). We can compare this to Mary's father character, which is a lot more solid than we might first give him credit for.
I would compare it in part to Jem and Scout in To Kill A Mockingbird, when they thought their father so boringly average. Not quite so. The mother, who also was in House of Sand and Fog, was also wonderful. She is such a beautiful woman as well, and very well known in Iran. Ultimately, we understand how strong she is, which helps to explain how her daughter also has such a firm sense of herself. This is important, given she has to do some growing up during the film.
Maryam is ultimately about the importance of family, how they stick together, even if there is so much to tear them apart. "Family" can be used in a broad sense, since we see how the same basic principle applies to some of their friends, and perhaps even to the nation as a whole to some degree. The nation held together through the Iranian Hostage Crisis, and a lot more since.
Thus, the movie ultimately ends on a sense of hope, including hope in the future leaders of our nation, who have so much to give us, if we only know how to properly help them be able to do so. I will add as a final note that though they sometimes depress me (as do their elders), I have known enough teens that would shame many of us with their wisdom, kindness, and basic "head firmly on their shoulderness” that I think our future is secure. If their knucklehead "betters," don't mess it up, that is!
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* Blockbuster in fact is sort of a funny name, though clearly it comes from the name of a big, flashy film, especially of the disaster genre that comes at you like a "block buster."
The new service that I mention here is probably a response to online competition and so forth (its five day rental seemed to be a response to a similar Hollywood Video offer). Clearly, supply/demand and so forth are not just things one finds in economic textbooks.