“Chicken with Plums” is the most creative, amusing, touching and above all beautiful movie I’ve ever seen on the subject of someone’s gradual suicide. It concerns a famous Iranian violinist who—after his favorite violin is broken—decides he can’t live so he lies in his bed and waits for death to come to him. While he does that he reflects on moments of his life. Though, that’s probably the most basic recount of the plot. “Chicken with Plums” is a movie that relies more on character and moods than it does on plot points.
Here’s a movie that’s completely authentic but at the same
time has an imaginative and playful visual style. It’s directed by Vincent
Paronnaud and Marjane Satrapi, the same duo behind the 2007 film “Persepolis.”
(Both “Chicken with Plums” and “Persepolis” are based on graphic novels by
Satrapi). While “Persepolis” was solely an animated film, “Chicken with Plums”
is half. There are real actors and real sets and real props but often times the
background—like in an overhead shot of the town of Tehran, where the film takes
place-- is either animated or a toy model.
It gives the movie an intentionally artificial otherworldly
quality. It’s almost like each character is walking around in a painting. Also, the composition of each scene is fairly
neat. Like in “Moonrise Kingdom” no object or little detail is out of place and
the cinematographer Christophe Beaucarne emphasizes particular shades of
colors, making each scene stand out visually.
The style is used for both the goofy and extravagant nature
of the film as well as for dramatic effect. It serves a purpose, instead of
just being stylistic for the sake of being stylistic.
The violinist is Nasser-Ali Khan (Mathieu Amalric), who’s
married with two kids. After his wife breaks his violin, it breaks his heart.
He even travels a far distance to get a replacement violin, but it’s not good
enough. So after figuring out the most painless method of death he decides to lie
in bed and wait it out for eight days. Now you probably have two questions: Did
I just give away a major plot point? And what a selfish bastard, it’s just a
stupid violin, right? The answer to the first question is simply no. The movie
isn’t about the death itself but how it gets to that point. And as far as the
second question is concerned, the violin stands for much more.
Yes, Nasser may be a little selfish. Any man who would kill
himself, leaving a wife and two kids behind is definitely a little selfish and
that may be flaw (a flaw in the story, not in the filmmaking) of Nasser’s
character but at the same time you learn about him and his past and begin to sympathize
with him. We find out that he was sort of forced into the marriage by his
domineering and hard to impress mother Parvine (Isabella Rossellini). When he
was a young adult he went to train with a prestigious violin teacher who told
him he had the technique but not the music. And he met the woman of his dreams
at one point but because of her bossy father they could no longer be together,
which still eats him up to this day.
The film can be a little uneven; some of the tangents and
flashbacks go on longer than necessary but I was still deeply moved by “Chicken
with Plums.” The film has very rich visual panache but then it has a genuine
story and characters to back it up. All of the actors do well with their roles
though Amalric is easily the best. A majority of his performance is in his
face. A face that reads, compassion, humor and sadness. The three things that
are felt the most in this wonderful, beautiful movie.
3.5/4
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