"Iron Island" (2005)

The alacrity with which life as usual proceeds, from the mundane to the marine and extra-terrestrial, hits us only after the-boy-who-loves-a-girl lights the candle that lightens the darkness with which the film begins. The film ends with another boy ("Little Fish") who runs toward the sun, the evening, on its way out. We never see the village where Captain Nesmat takes the villagers at the end of the film -- because what's important is not that the villagers live on a ship (an "iron island") or whether they live on land, in a town, in a city, wherever; what's really important is that they are together, and that they stay together, wherever they go. The film, as it were, trains us to get used to the rhythms in which the village functions and keeps together: the laws and customs and the repercussions of breaking these laws and customs, as we find out during the climax, when the-boy-who-loves-a-girl attempts to leave the village (a sin of sorts that threatens to rend the fabric of their special conjunct), attempts, in fact, to place an individual (the girl he loves) above the village. We learn, in a way, that the village is what makes the island, not the ship, not the iron that went into the ship, not the fact that they are living in peculiar circumstances. They are a tribe and a tribe stays together: the velocity with which they live is the fullest expression of their contentment, and the unbridled energy of Captain Nesmat, who lifts and anchors the film and the people and the setting, is representative of the village as a whole. Iron Island is as much documentary as it is fiction in its study of these socio-economic velocities that are only peripherally disturbed by the private emotions of young people in love. (An allegory about filmmaking as it is about Iran in a certain place and time?)