Film: Firecracker Wednesday (Charshanbeh-suri). Writers: {Mani Haqiqi} and {Asghar Farhadi}. Director: Asghar Farhadi. Cast: {Hedieh Tehrani} (Mojdeh), {Hamidreza Farrokhnejad} (Morteza), {Pantea Bahram} (Simin), {Taraneh Alidousti} (Rouhi), Sahar Dowlatshahi….

"We have parties to hide the silence… worse is the loneliness of the hours after the party and the hours after that." This is what RICHARD, the HIV positive writer whose latest book has won a literary prize, says this to his longtime lover, Clarissa, who has given a party for him In The Hours ({Stephen Daldry}, 2002). An hour before the party, he ends his own life.

Firecracker Wednesday is about one of those rare rituals of celebration in Iran that we observe every year. It is the last Tuesday of the year. People light fires to commemorate MITHRA of the ancient religion, chase the cold winter away, roll out the carpets for the spring, be merry, sing and dance. For years, thanks to the government-imposed restrictions and as a result of the roots of its ancient traditions being lost, this festival has turned into a seemingly bloody street war with real casualties. For those with edgy nerves, this day is crossed off the calendars. Many stay at home with earplugs in their ears, waiting for the night to pass.

As in his miniseries and previous films, director {Asghar Farhadi} in Firecracker Wednesday dissects Tehran, a city in which he lives. In the bustle of this end-of-year celebration, he tries to get closer to a people whose confusions and abusive relationships pale the commotion of Firecracker Wednesday. The film, both in words and appearance, does not give much explanation about the end-year celebration and its relationship to the New Year. Instead, it relies on the knowledge of the viewers; for this reason non-Iranians will not be able to sufficiently connect with the film and its important background.

Tehran has a strong presence in the film -- heavy traffic, sad and sullied apartment buildings. The main characters of the film, who all have on grey clothing, are the inhabitants of one of these apartments. The main location of the film is the apartment MORTEZA {Hamid Farrokhnejad} and MOIJDEH {Hedieh Tehrani}. On the brink of the New Year the distress of these people and their lives is rubbed in our faces from the moment we set foot in their home. The mood on the night of Charshanbeh-suri (incidentally because the film doesn't talk about the customs of this night) is pit against the nightmarish background of fire, explosions and hysteric merriment. The abrasive noise pollution of Tehran, to which we have grown accustomed to, is present throughout the film. The occasional sound of explosions on the night of Firecracker Wednesday adds to this pollution, so much so that the dark and gloomy atmosphere of the film and its characters seem more unreal and depressing. This atmosphere may lead viewers -- especially Westerners -- to conclude that the film is a unique social criticism, one that uses a metaphoric language to talk about social ills. This impression, right or not, seems inescapable.

However much a critical eye may try to attribute this film to European Modernists like {Antonioni} and {Kieslowski}, we have few of such important urban documents belonging to this unique era and are in great need of these grey days and grey people documented. Iranians are in great need of standing in front of a mirror made of the Firecracker Wednesday silver coating, so that even if they can't do anything for themselves, at least they shouldn't be very "happy" and constantly thinking of celebrating and lighting fires. Somewhere in the film, in response to ROUHI (Taraneh Alidousti), who is always trying to "do the right thing," SIMIN (Pantea Bahram) says, "Let it not be right for once." And we sometimes allow a filmmaker to depict an extremely realistic situation in which everything does not conform to our ready-made values -- in some years the coming of "spring" doesn't spell "celebration."

Seeing the exile of people caught in the grey city may shake us into realizing how deep we have sunk in our predicaments. The outstanding aspect of the film is in this: in contrast to most of the characters we see in Iranian cinema, the characters of Firecracker Wednesday are real. They desperately lie and make mistakes, without wanting to be "bad" or "good," and, like all of us, claw alone at the taste of something enigmatic called "life." Asghar Farhadi of course is still optimistic enough to show things through the eyes of Rouhi, who is a simple house worker. She lives in a small village on the outskirts of Tehran and in the end returns to its simplicity; but if we do not budge and remain busy with our parties, this Rouhi and the other Rouhis of this land, more than it currently is, somewhere under our noses, will be forced into begging and prostitution and we will remain in our dusty apartments and increasingly forget the unalloyed taste of life.

Of course, Firecracker Wednesday does have its faults, which at least Asghar Farhadi should not easily ignore: social criticisms in the form of direct symbolism, like the violent imagery of war, the school students or the covering of the hair of a seven-year-old girl in a TV ad, seem outlandish. In the script, we find no justification for the maid's presence in the house. The dialogue is sometimes artificial, especially in the sequence where Morteza and Simin square off. Morteza finds out that his wife has been spying on him and gets physical with her. Then, in the sequence after that, when Mojdeh is seen crying in the cab, the editing of the film is such that the viewer may wonder what is taking place, which is the result of a lack of close-up and introductory shots. Of course, capturing such shots with Hedieh Tehrani and Hamid Farrokhnejad in that crowd in front of Paytakht Trading Center on Mirdamad Boulevard must have been a difficult task. The set design of the film is concentrated on Morteza and Mojdeh's apartment and that of the other locations is haphazard. For example, the walls of Morteza's workplace, which is supposed to be an ad agency, are covered with architectural drawings.

The way the public has received Firecracker Wednesday is interesting and to an extent bizarre. The film has been cleverly screened at a very appropriate time; four main prizes of the Fajr Film Festival were awarded to this film and the curiosity of the people for seeing this successful film of the festival is still fresh. In addition, it is the final days of the year and people are preparing for the New Year celebrations and of course the fireworks of the Firecracker Wednesday. I predict that many come to see the film looking for the New Year and Firecracker Wednesday atmosphere and get surprised instead, and my prediction came true in the theater where I saw the film. The truth is that we are a people ready for celebrating and partying. That is why the high box office sales of Firecracker Wednesday in the first days of its screening is strange and maybe a result of a collective misunderstanding. Many of us struggle to escape those bitter hours after the party and avoid looking at people who in the commotion of our party are in their own world, nursing their pains. No, we won't see those two women whose pains are now projected onto their children. Nor will we see those two men occupying the empty spaces of their long lost loves.