FILM-FORWARD.COMReviews of Recent Independent, Foreign, & Documentary Films in Theaters and DVD/Home Video
MARATHON
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
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