Batin Ghobadi's "Mardan" is a terrifically good film from Iraq that shows movies allocated to the art-house circuit, both in this country and in the West in general, can take on Hollywood at its own game and really deliver the goods. Here is a movie that is highly intelligent, and sufficiently elliptical, for us to bring our brains into the cinema once again while at the same time delivering something edgy, dark and yes, exciting.
Of course, we are in an environment that is alien to most of us and it's a magnificent environment, beautifully photographed by Saba Mazloum. Mardan himself is a corrupt policeman dealing with demons from his childhood and attempting to redeem himself by helping a young woman find the man Mardan presumes is her missing husband. It's the kind of film I can see a good American director like David Fincher remaking or the kind of film the American cinema might have turned out in the seventies.
While the central plot is (relatively) easy for us to follow it's the accumulation of little incidental details that we need to pay attention to. Here is a film that keeps us on the edge of our seats but not in any conventional way. I really do think it is a masterpiece and certainly the best 'new' film I have seen this year. (It hails from 2014).
