Khaneh siah ast (The House is Black)... by Forugh Farrokhzad, 1963

There is no shortness of ugliness in this world. If man closed his eyes to it there would be even more. But man is a problem solver.

We've been through some very intense and politically charged days and nights over here in Greece and I just couldn't get myself to write this review. I’ve been thinking I should put this one at the back of my head and write about a more lighthearted one (yet no less important) but then it came to me that The House is Black remained relevant to what I’ve experienced these days, that not being the have fun-love all-buy all holiday spirit of the season. 

When I was silent my life was rotting from my silent screams all day long.

Forugh Farrokhzad, an important Iranian poet and controversial figure at her time, directed this one, a short documentary about everyday life in a leper colony that stands between realism and drama in a territory I’d call poetic realism. Farrokhzad recites passages from the Koran and the Old Testament along with her poetry that is preoccupied with death, the limited joys of life and freedom, most times from a confident feminine point of view. This film, her only one, opened the way for the Iranian new wave, but apart from its historical value, it is a film of intense beauty and sensitivity, though candid and direct. 

The Eye.

The film opens with this shot, so shocking in its beauty. The whole film is comprised of striking images, dense in symbolic value, that are juxtaposed in a dialectic way. The woman looks into the mirror and her image (through the slow travelling of the camera into the mirror) is translated into ours. We are looking at our own reflection. The lepers are not just “humans like us”, they are us, therefore their disease is a disease we all have, ignorance, inertia, the unwillingness to face reality in all its monstrosity and act. Instead we prefer to close our eyes to the world.

This game of seeing continues. We are compelled to look at the world through different eyes.

A child tries to stand up and we explore the surrounding world through his/hers eyes. 

A “pure”, uninfected creature looks around the world it was born in and sees decay, pain and stagnation. That could easily be its future.

The baby in the wheelbarrow sees everything. 

The voice.

The House of God is just as damaged as the body of the lepers. 

Inside, the soul cries for a cure for pain.

Broken frames like crooked antennas tuned to heaven.

Clinging at the throne of power. Nothing good ever came out of that. 

Who is this in Hell praising you O Lord? Who is this in Hell? 

This Hell is man-made and only man can turn it into heaven.

The Hands.

We learn early on in the film that leprosy is not a hereditary disease. The young ones in the colony can escape the fate of their parents. Their future is not predetermined. It would just take something more than prayers, because leprosy, we know, is curable. We see the doctors treat their patients, distribute medicine and we learn that it’s through exercise that the stiffness of their limbs can be alleviated. So it’s a matter of who can answer their hopes for a better life: a metaphysical entity that dwells beyond this world or is it “the very soul of mankind”, the configuration of our inner world that makes man a “problem solver”? 

Around the first third of the film we're introduced to the medical stuff of the colony that treats the lepers as patients, treating wounds and exercising their limbs. When this part ends, we see the lepers pray for salvation and we're  naturally shocked. If people have the power and knowledge to alleviate their fellowman's pain, then why all hope rests in the hands of God? 

The kid steals the crutch and goes around to play. A bit on the cheesy side maybe, but an effective image of freedom and creativity nonetheless. 

We also learn that leprosy goes with poverty, so the whole issue here can't be just a disease. Forugh seizes the opportunity to draw parallels to the social reality in her country (oh, well, the social condition in most places). People must rely on their own powers (=science/logic) to change their lives and be free of pain and suffering in their limited time on this earth. Leprosy is a social disease. It keeps the lepers isolated from the rest of society (so as not to disrupt the fragile image of normality), it keeps people isolated from their own lives, with which they can only hope to reconnect through prayers. 

-Name a few ugly things.   -Hand, head, foot…

-Write a sentence with the word house in it.   -The house is black.

Forugh casts a sympathetic glance on their condition and isolation but at the same time, she is not willing to dwell on this sentiment alone, because it amounts to nothing on its own. We, the lucky ones, are not superior to them in any way, even within our sympathy. She shocks you by showing you that beneath what we call monstrous is a man like everyone, with the very same hopes and dreams and needs and flaws as anyone and she proposes a way out through dialectic montage. Watching the film again these days urged me to re-read that old "Writing the Truth: Five Difficulties" by Bertolt Brecht. The belief that truth is absolute and waits to be unveiled may be a problematic one (just the same as absolute trust in science and logic, as suggested in the film, is) but that doesn’t mean we should leave this world and the monopoly of truth to the “bad guys”. We were brave enough to dissect. We shouldn’t be scarred by the responsibility to reassemble the pieces in a better-working configuration. 

Hope is a heavy stone. Its weight carries you uphill towards the promised top yet it also breaks your fingers and breaks your back. You can only see your steps that follow an imaginary path uphill, eyesight reduced to tunnel-vision, the weight that pushes your feet onwards is mistaken for "fate" and everything around you is reduced to shadows. C'mon, drop the stone and have a coffee instead. Choose your mountain, straighten your back, uncurl your fingers, see the world. 

 A woman's fingers are pressed under rocks to regain their proper form. Limbs that are stiffened by the disease should be exercised.

This is basically an uplifting film. It reassures me that the core of man is always capable of the best despite all diseases inflicted on us by society. Yes, I know that there is no such thing as purity and basic goodness in man in the Christian sense but that doesn’t mean we should surrender. "There is no need to fear or hope, but only to look for new weapons", as Deleuze put it.

So, may this be a good year to you. Know your enemy and be good to each other.

Feel the strength from within, do you believe it's a sin 
To find the power lying inside your mind?
Not from the cross or the gun, 
Not from the Moon nor the Sun, 
But rising from the very soul of mankind .