Death surrounds Bahman, a director who hasn’t made a film in 24 years (he can’t get past the censors). He’s working on a documentary, for Japanese TV, on Iranian burial practices. On the anniversary of his wife’s death, a hitchhiker tells him a story of spousal abuse and infant mortality, he discovers that someone has been buried in his plot next to his wife, and he needs the help of his attorney, a well-connected fixer. He dreams of death, even as he investigates it for his film. His niece’s husband, a well-known writer, fails to return home; he searches hospitals for an unclaimed body. His heart disease is flaring up. Is he prepared for death? Is that all that’s left?

Review by nunculus @IMDb:
This extraordinarily bizarre film is a triumph of the crushingly personal. Bahman Farmanara, an Iranian filmmaker thwarted in his attempts to make movies for twenty-two years, made his comeback with this autobiographical fragment that literally defies all genre rules–it falls between every imaginable classification stool. Its sole resemblance to other, more celebrated films of the “Iranian New Wave” is in its acute meta-ness. Farmanara, playing himself in the most pained self-portrait of a director since Lucio Fulci’s CAT IN THE BRAIN, finally gets a project past the Iranian censors: a documentary for Japanese TV on Iranian burial rituals. In what at first seems either like a ripoff of Woody Allen, or a parody of TASTE OF CHERRY, Farmanara uses this morbid premise as an excuse to rehearse his own death and burial. What springs from this neurosis is neither funny, exactly, nor poignant. It dances to the beat of its own drummer, as elusive and smokelike in tone as a short story by Bruno Schulz or isaac Babel. One cannot say that Farmanara has shed all the rust of those twenty-two years; or, frankly, that his phlegmatic performance–he looks like Harold Bloom feeling the weight of world literature on his shoulders–works. But as an exemplar of making movies as the voicing of individual feelings and beliefs, SMELL OF CAMPHOR goes to the head of the class.

Smell.of.Camphor.Fragrance.of.Jasmine.2000.DVDRIP.x264.AC3.KJNU.mkv

General
Container:  	Matroska
Runtime: 	1 h 28 min
Size: 	1.24 GiB
Video
Codec: 	x264
Resolution: 	700x480 ~> 828x480
Aspect ratio:  	1.727
Frame rate: 	25.000 fps
Bit rate: 	1 800 kb/s
BPP: 	0.214
Audio
#1:  	Persian 2.0ch AC-3 @ 192 kb/s

https://nitro.download/view/A34A4FAE92C6D0C/Smell.of.Camphor.Fragrance.of.Jasmine.2000.DVDRIP.x264.AC3.KJNU.mkv

https://rapidgator.net/file/dad7f12c56bd97cb28c8116e0aafe2f8/Smell.of.Camphor.Fragrance.of.Jasmine.2000.DVDRIP.x264.AC3.KJNU.mkv

Language(s):Persian
Subtitles:English

The post Bahman Farmanara – Booye kafoor, atre yas AKA Smell of Camphor, Fragrance of Jasmine (2000) first appeared on Cinema of the World.

Quote:
After 22 years, Aziz decides to return to his hometown, to sell some family possessions, including the house where he was born. But for his astonishment, the place is now a small restaurant, run by four women, one of them a girl whom he once dated. Attieh, the girl, tries to convince him not to sell the place by, instead of telling him a story a day as Sheherazade, cooking him a delicious dish every day.

The Fish Fall In Love (2005).93min.mkv

General
Container:  	Matroska
Runtime: 	1 h 32 min
Size: 	1.08 GiB
Video
Codec: 	x264
Resolution: 	702x418 ~> 773x418
Aspect ratio:  	1.85:1
Frame rate: 	24.000 fps
Bit rate: 	1 466 kb/s
BPP: 	0.208
Audio
#1:  	Persian 2.0ch AC-3 @ 192 kb/s

It's actually shorter by a bit over three minutes. The first difference appears at 00:13:53. One guy says "what about the wife and kids", the other guy makes some expression, and the first one replies "so you're living the good life. lucky bastard!". The latter reply doesn't appear in the DVD. Sounds like censorship?

https://nitro.download/view/1828B3F46DF1450/The_Fish_Fall_In_Love_(2005).93min.mkv

Language(s):Persian
Subtitles:English (pretty bad), Arabic, Persian

The post Ali Rafie – Mahiha ashegh mishavand AKA The Fish Fall In Love [Censored] (2005) first appeared on Cinema of the World.

Quote:
The fight for power in an isolated Iranian village. Two families have been enemies for so long they cannot even remember why. The only hope for peace between the feuding families is lost when an arranged marriage agreement is broken. Some days later, the groom, Karamat, returns with a brand new minibus. But a fierce competition for passengers break out when the bride, Mehrbanou, decides to do the same…

808MB | 1h 17m | 720×448 | avi

https://nitro.download/view/7D64914C0385306/19970902_-_Fasleh_panjom_(The_Fifth_Season)_(Rafi_Pitts,_1997)_(English_subtitles)_(VHS-rip).avi

Language(s):Persian
Subtitles:English hard

The post Rafi Pitts – Fasl-e panjom AKA The Fifth Season (1997) first appeared on Cinema of the World.

Review by Jonathan Rosenbaum
A 1989 film by Mohsen Makhmalbaf about the upsetting discoveries made by a shell-shocked veteran of the Iran-Iraq war after he returns to his job as a photojournalist in Tehran and to his fiancee, the daughter of a wealthy merchant. As in The Peddler, Makhmalbaf shows considerable talent and passion for dealing with the contradictions of contemporary Iranian life, and the restless and eclectic style of his direction makes this one of his most penetrating and disturbing works. In Farsi with subtitles. 75 min.

This one is also on Rosenbaum’s top 1000 list.

Makhmalbaf’s comments:
My friend, my friend’s brother, one of my relatives and a lot of my acquaintances have been seized by explosion waves. Their behavior has attracted my attention. In this film I have tried to acquaint you with the situation of a soldier photographer, whom has been seized by explosion waves; with his aims, what makes him happy or what makes him upset. My mother says that the hero of your movie has been seized by the social waves. And the psychologists of my research resource believe that explosion wave is a primary impact and if the patient’s condition is appropriate he would recover very soon. Haji, the main character of my story, is after recovery and is looking for appropriate conditions for his health. The doctor advises him to set up his wedding as soon as possible…In this movie I accompanied him for his wedding preparations step by step…

https://nitro.download/view/394007F11804997/MarriageOfTheBlessed.1989.MohsenMakhmalbaf.avi

Language(s):Persian
Subtitles:English (Hardsubs)

The post Mohsen Makhmalbaf – Arousi-ye Khouban AKA Marriage of the Blessed (1989) first appeared on Cinema of the World.

Spanning 18 years in an Iranian women’s prison, this follows two women: the new prison warden, a tough as nails devout Muslim who has served in the army on the Iraqi front, and a young midwife, Mitra, who is serving her sentence for killing her mother’s abusive husband. In the early years, Mitra is repeatedly punished as the warden tries to break her. This includes punishment for delivering a baby in the prison cell while all of the prison staff has taken shelter during an Iraqi bombing. The warden’s attitude starts to change after 8 years, when Mitra tries to protect a new inmate from rape at the hands of her older cellmates. When the baby comes back in 1991 as a 17 year old delinquent, Sepideh, the warden respects Mitra enough to protect the girl.

https://nitro.download/view/4FF36569826F57E/zendan-e_zanan_aka_women’s_prison.avi

Language(s):Farsi
Subtitles:English hardsubs

The post Manijeh Hekmat – Zendan-e zanan aka Women’s Prison (2002) first appeared on Cinema of the World.