Collective Guilt | Cinema Sojourns
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The Iranian film poster for NO DATE, NO SIGNATURE (2017) directed by Vahid Jalilvand.
Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary supplies the following definitions of the word guilt: 1) the fact of having committed a breach of conduct esp. violating law and involving a penalty; broadly: guilty conduct 2a: the state of one who has committed an offense esp. consciously b: feelings of culpability esp. for imagined offenses or from a sense of inadequacy: self-reproach. What the definitions don’t address is the festering psychological fallout from this condition that can result in a loss of self-esteem and possibly derail more than one person’s life. You couldn’t find a better illustration of this than Bedoone Tarikh, Bedoone Emza (English title: No Date, No Signature , 2017), an award-winning drama from Iranian director Vahid Jalilvand.
The English film poster for NO DATE, NO SIGN aka No Date, No Signature, a 2017 drama from Iran
It all begins one dark night as Dr. Kaveh Nariman (Amir Aghaee), a forensic pathologist, is driving home when an aggressive motorist begins to tailgate him at high speed. When Kaveh quickly moves into the right lane, the passing motorist clips his car, causing him to hit a motorcyclist on the side of the road. Kaveh stops to aid the person he hit and discovers that the cyclist Musa (Navid Mohammadzadeh) was transporting his family – his wife Leila (Zakieh Behbahani) and two children – on the vehicle. No one appears to be seriously hurt but the motorcycle was damaged and Musa’s son Amir took the brunt of the fall. Musa demands that Kaveh call the police but the doctor dismisses the request as unnecessary and offers Musa a wad of cash for his trouble. Kaveh also advises Musa to take his son to a nearby clinic to make sure the fall didn’t cause unseen internal damage to the boy.
Kaveh (Amir Aghaee), a forensic pathologist, is disturbed by the results of a recent autopsy in NO DATE, NO SIGNATURE (2017), a drama from Iran.
Later in the week Kaveh is called to the hospital morgue to inspect a new arrival and recognizes it as the body of the eight-year-old Amir. Although he admits to his colleague Dr. Sayeh Behbahani (Hediyeh Tehrani) he knew the boy, he doesn’t reveal anything about the accident that involved them both. Later Sayeh, who performs the autopsy, discovers that Amir’s death was caused from botulism. When she questions the parents about this, they both appear stunned but the truth slowly emerges: Amir had recently eaten some chicken that was bought from Habib, an employee at a local chicken processing plant who sold discarded chickens as a side business.
Musa (Navid Mohammadzadeh) discovers dead chickens in a trash bin at a poultry factory in NO DATE, NO SIGNATURE (2017).
No Date, No Signature quickly descends into tragedy as Musa takes revenge for his son’s death by going to the chicken plant and confronting Habib. Musa is physically removed from the facility by coworkers while Habib is reprimanded by his boss for selling rotten meat out of the trash bins but it doesn’t end there. Musa storms back into the building and gives Habib a severe beating (offscreen) which puts him in a coma. Musa winds up in prison for his actions and things take a turn for the worse when Habib dies from his injuries.
Processing plant employees restrain Musa (Navid Mohammadzadeh) from trying to attack a coworker in the 2017 Iranian drama NO DATE, NO SIGNATURE.
Kaveh is completely unsettled by this news because he feels that Amir might have died from injuries suffered in the motorcycle accident instead of botulism and ends up requesting a second autopsy (Even though the results prove there was some spinal damage to the boy, it is impossible to cite it as the main cause of death). And so the guilt suffered by Kaveh and Musa for their behavior the night of the accident becomes the driving force behind this character study that examines not just class differences in Iranian society (Kaveh is upper middle class, Musa is working class) but also moral and ethical concerns.
Sayeh (Hediyeh Tehrani) becomes concerned about the unusual death of an eight-year-old boy in the 2017 Iranian drama NO DATE, NO SIGNATURE.
No Date, No Signature becomes an existential “what if” scenario about the actions of both Kaveh and Musa and how it spirals out of control affecting family and colleagues. Sayeh, in particular, becomes swept up in the human drama due to her professional relationship with Kaveh as well as the boy’s family. Leila, Musa’s wife, also becomes a proactive witness in the affair as she consults a lawyer to help defend her husband.
Leila (Zakieh Behbahani) feels thwarted in her efforts to help her imprisoned husband in NO DATE, NO SIGNATURE (2017), a drama from Iran.
Vahid Jalilvand’s second directorial feature (he co-wrote it with Ali Zarnegar) is an emotionally complex and troubling look at contemporary Iranian society. To any outsider,...