The Hunter (2010)

There are things I liked about Iranian drama 'The Hunted': the scenes of quiet dialogue, where the meaning lies in what's not said, or the surreal waiting-for-Godot quality that the movie takes on as it nears its end. It's also interesting to see an Iran of stormy coasts and rain-swept forests, far from the classical image of a land of deserts. But the first half of the film is overly quiet and slow, and there are also a number of low-key scenes that have self-evidently been written and shot that way not for effect, but for budgetary reasons: the car chase, for example, is supremely low-energy, while other critical moments occur off-camera. More than anything else, however, the film is let down mostly by its odd plot, and the seemingly random motivations of its characters. It feels like the debut feature of someone with more than a few ideas, but without the practice of how to actually make them work as a film.

Ali is an ex-convict who on release from prison returns home to the city of Tehran. Reconnecting his fragmented family of wife and daughter, he finds a job working night shifts to provide. Tehran, depicted as an urban jungle fraught with dissent and unrest, becomes like a 'prison' to Ali, and he manages to hold on to his sanity by going away to the forest North of the city, as often as he can, to hunt.One day Ali's wife and daughter go missing. After a tense and lengthy procedure to try and locate them, he learns from the Police that they have been killed in the cross-fire of a city gun fight between Police officers and an Insurgent group. There is an ambiguity surrounding Ali's wife and daughter; around their origin (is she really his daughter); and concerning their ultimate fates.Ali almost breaks but manages to retain some sense of his sanity by instead breaking from the state. He takes his hunting rifle and staking out a highway road from a hill top, he kills two random police officers. He leaves Tehran and goes on the run only to be tracked by a police helicopter which eventually leads to a high speed car chase when his car is spotted on a foggy mountain road by a patrol-car. Captured by two policemen after a deep forest pursuit, the three of them find themselves lost. Wandering in frustration through dense mountain forest, their is a shift in the dynamics between the Policemen and Ali, and a deadly conflict between the two officers gradually surfaces.It is a striking and tense, emotional thriller with long periods (sequence after sequence beautifully shot) absent of dialogue which makes the film all the more fully engaging.

As this film opens we see protagonist Ali, a hunter, loading his rifle in a forest; we then learn that he works as a night watchman at a factory in Tehran. He is married with a young daughter. His life is fairly mundane until one day he gets a phone call from the police; it turns out his wife have been killed in the crossfire in a shootout between the police and insurgents; they have no idea what happened to his daughter though. Ali then sets about looking for his young daughter without any luck; eventually he learns that she too has died. Sitting on a hill above a busy dual-carriageway he takes out his rifle and fires at a police car; it swerves and comes to a halt, then he shoots and kills the policeman who gets out. He flees the city but is caught by two cops in the forest. By the time they have caught up with him though they are well and truly lost; one of them wants to kill Ali for what he has done but the other won't let him; as tensions rise it looks as though the two policemen are a danger to each other as well as Ali… inevitably it will end in tragedy.Inevitably much of this films interest comes not from its contents but from the fact that it was made in the Islamic Republic of Iran; not a country most westerners would associate with film making. I suspect the biggest surprise for most viewers will be the fact that the characters don't seem that much different to those who might appear in a film made in the west. That isn't to say the film looks like something that came out of Hollywood; it certainly doesn't. The pace is much, much slower, there is almost no music and there is little explanation… for example we aren't told how the two policemen realised Ali was the man they were after and we don't see the moment they catch him; one moment they are chasing him the next he has his hands tied behind his back. Rafi Pitts does a fine job as Ali; a man who is clearly broken by what happened to his family and barely cares what will happen to him once he is caught. Overall I'd say that while this isn't the most exciting thriller it is worth watching if only for the glimpse it provides into a country that rarely gets positive coverage.

I viewed The Hunter at TIFF, entering the theatre without having researched anything about the film. The only thing I knew was that it was an Iranian film. Essentially, I went in with an open mind and zero expectations, yet I still came out fairly disappointed.The film kicks off full of energy with a still referencing tense relations enjoyed between Iran and America since 1979. We meet a lower-class average man named Ali who sports the same sullen face from beginning to end. Is he angry simply because his employment as a watchman doesn't afford him much time to see his family, or is there a deeper plot about his time spent in prison? We never find out. Why did he go to prison? We never find out.Occasionally, Ali steals away from the city (where he's bombarded with political propaganda, which again is not touched upon in any detail) to a quiet area in the country he knows very well; a hunter and his trusty rifle alone in the wilderness. Ali stalks an unknown prey, and fires off a couple shots (probably the most exciting part of the film, as the gunshots are devastatingly loud). What is he hunting? We never find out. Does he actually kill anything, or bring it back home? We never find out. He must be the most incompetent hunter in the world, or he's letting off some steam. We never find out - especially given that he maintains the same sullen face upon returning home.Even when his family dies as a result of a shootout between the police and "insurgents", Ali oddly expresses little, if any, reaction. Was his wife secretly an "insurgent" (and did he know?) or was she merely caught in the crossfire, as the police told him? We never find out. Why does he express zero emotion at the sight of his dead child's body? We never find out.Eventually, with nothing to lose, he finally expresses some talent in hunting by plucking off two police officers driving down the highway. With the authorities chasing after him, you'd expect some feelings of anxiety or excitement, but it's too strewn out to be much enjoyed. Worse, a second plot that develops about the corruption of the two police officers who apprehend Ali drags out long enough for me to check my watch.The Hunter is a film that appears constantly to reach for deeper themes, deeper emotion, and a deeper plot, but always falls short. Any promising element succumbs to extreme minimalism, which, ironically, destroys the element of art in film making by trying to be so artistic. It's not ambiguous, it's vague. It's not subtle, it's empty. And it's not patient, it's boring.Such minimalism causes the viewer to imagine plot development, and it is the source of major frustration. It's like imagining vivid additions to a canvas painted in a single colour, but why are we making stuff up in our minds when the art piece should be guiding us along to the story? There is so much rich substance the director, Rafi Pitts (who stars as Ali), could have incorporated even slightly into the plot - namely Ali's past and his (and his family's) involvement with national politics. A quick and simple explanation that he served time for involvement in "insurgent" activities, for example, would have connected beautifully to his murder of two authorities from the state.In my opinion, it wouldn't have taken much for Rafi Pitts to incorporate greater elements of political tension or character development (and background), as it's obvious there is a lot of rich substance to be drawn. Ultimately, The Hunter is a draft sketch of a screenplay prematurely put to the camera.I'm sure an ivory tower film critic somewhere would praise The Hunter for its deep questions, but the reality is that the only question most will have after viewing the film is, "What the hell actually happened in that hour and a half?" And in case I entirely wrong about The Hunter, and I am actually too blind to notice a deeper connotation in the film, I award it 1 star out of 10.