“Shab, Dakheli, Divar” (Beyond the Wall) Photocall – 79th Venice International Film Festival

All these questions are slyly planted in a paranoid narrative that, whenever it begins to establish some clarity, tends to jump onto a new level of perplexity. Just as the chamber drama, limited to Ali’s murky living quarters, is at its most enclosed, the action moves into the broad daylight, in a flashback showing how Leila got into this mess: attending a workers’ protest over pay, that turned explosive after heavy-handed police methods incited rioting.

September 8, 2022 | 6:38 pm