MARATHON
Directed & Written by: Amir Naderi.
Produced by: Amir Naderi & Reza Namazi.
Director of Photography: Michael Simmonds.
Edited by: Amir Naderi, Donal O'Ceilleachair & Moira Demos.
Released by: Alphaville Films NYC.
Country of Origin: USA. 74 min. Not Rated.
With: Sara Paul, Trevor Moore & Rebecca Nelson.

Very few underground or independent filmmakers in New York come to their chosen field with a résumé like Amir Naderi's. Alongside Abbas Kiarostami, Naderi was part of the first generation of great Iranian filmmakers whose careers first bloomed in the pre-Revolutionary 1960s and ‘70s. And his lyrical films The Runner (1985) and Water, Wind, Dust (1989) helped bring international attention to Iran's post-Revolutionary cinema. Since moving to New York in the early 1990s, Naderi has been turning out a trilogy of small, quirky and experimental films about his adopted city, Manhattan by Numbers (1992), A, B, C... Manhattan (1997), and finally, Marathon.

Nonetheless, those who don't know Naderi's earlier work might be forgiven for confusing Marathon with a better-than-average student film. It has a similar earnestness about it and a blithe disregard for Hollywood conventions. Moreover, its skillful but low-budget black-and-white cinematography does little to relieve this impression. Marathon's simple story line takes place largely in the bowels of the city's transit underground, where a young woman (Sara Paul) undergoes a self-imposed trial of concentration and skill - attempting to break her own consecutive crossword-puzzle record - while wrapping herself (and us) in a blanket of noise, bustle, and constant motion. Her monomaniacal pursuit offers a visually and aurally intense cinematic portrait, a relentless striving all too modern in its disproportion and self-absorption.

With very little dialogue and few moments of calm, however, some will doubtless find the film's unremitting din and commotion unnerving, and the bleak industrial beauty of the compositions small compensation. Of course, this sensory overload is part of Naderi's intention, as well as the hypnotic attraction of this manic film's physical and psychic terrain. In the end, it's the perhaps inevitable precondition for the profoundly urban moment of grace ushered in with the season's first snowfall as, once again, nature asserts a sense of balance. Leili Kashani, Department of Middle Eastern Studies, New York University
April 1, 2004