Newcomer
Iranian-American writer-director Kourosh Ahari started out in the mid-2010s
producing and directing a number of short films as well as two feature length
projects before conjuring up what could be the first great horror film of 2021
with his Iranian-American language psychological nightmare The Night. Picked up by IFC Midnight for domestic
distribution, Ahari’s film made cinematic history when it became the very first
American produced film to receive a theatrical release in Iranian cinemas since
the Iranian revolution in 1979.
Co-produced
by Hotel Rwanda director Terry George and starring Shahab Hosseini (A
Separation) and Niousha Jafarian (Here and Now), this loose ode to The
Shining with just a dash of Hideo Kojima’s unrealized Silent Hill project
for good measure, the film is a freakish cocktail of horrors of the mind and
body which builds slowly towards a full throated shriek even the most accustomed
horrorphiles won’t see coming. As a
dedicated consumer of the horror genre, this was petrifying in ways few horror
films have been in the last five years with a finale that poses far more
unsettling questions than it provides answers to.
Babak
Naderi (Hosseini) and his wife Neda (Jafarian) are on their way home from a Los
Angeles dinner party when their GPS begins malfunctioning, sending the couple
and their infant daughter to a nearby hotel for the night. Checking in at the oddly deserted historical
landmark Hotel Normandie manned by a mercurial hotel clerk (George Maguire), the
two plan to catch some shut eye and reconvene the next morning. Within minutes of settling down in their room
for the night, the couple begin seeing and hearing inexplicable things with
both members questioning their own sanity as well as whether or not they’ll
actually be able to leave this Godforsaken place.
A
classy widescreen horror picture that grows steadily more claustrophobic and
hallucinatory as it goes on with a distinctly Iranian-American couple in the
leading roles, The Night is like being in a steadily maddening Hell for
two hours until it simply ends. Visually
breathtakingly shot by Maz Makhani who plays with the balance between light and
shadow as well as color saturation, The Night feels threatening even as
the haunted opening credits quietly unspool and the original score by Nima
Fakhrara is sheer sonic cutis anserina inducing terror of lo-fi rumblings and
electronically rendered abrasions.
Performances
by the two leads are very strong with Hosseini believably conveying intensifying
fear and confusion as neither he nor we are sure of what is real, hallucination
or supernatural anymore. Also strong is Jafarian
who on the one hand exudes panic and terror while also playing what could be
her…doppleganger? Before we’re sure of
what we’re looking at, the film proceeds to yank layer after layer of rug out
from under the characters and us. Not
since Darren Aronofsky’s Black Swan has there been such a controlled
portrait of insanity on the screen where a character looks in one direction at
a character only to turn their head the other way and find the same character
standing behind them. This deliberately
confusing affront on their characters’ (and viewers’) perspective only
amplifies the tension even more towards a near unbearable level.
One of
the year’s scariest movies with a distinctly Iranian-American flavor not seen
in American or Iranian cinema screens for that matter, The Night is the
kind of horror film you have to surrender to and let it take you down its labyrinthine
rabbit holes both real and imagined. Though
the premise and setup is indeed familiar, where The Night takes us was
unexpected, chilling and not a place that’s easy to shake or forget. Proof positive that the fear of demons of the
mind and things that go bump in the night is something that transcends all
language barriers of cinema and the horror movie. Just proceed with caution and try not to let
this one keep you up all hours of The Night.
--Andrew Kotwicki
