Search - Hamoun on DVD

Psycho-fantasy!

Ashwin | Bangalore, India | 06/03/2006

(4 out of 5 stars)

"This is a pretty interesting off beat flick! It chronicles the life of the protagonist, a writer by the name of Hamoun. The directorial touch of flitting between the past and the present is an interesting treatment and keeps the movie that much more enjoyable, since the contrasts are stark on the one hand & the plot crystallized on the other. As we weave through Hamoun's life, his work, his wife, her work, their relationship, the others in their lives... we slowly become completely enmeshed with the character & thats when the movie really starts to trip into phantasmagoria.

Incidentally, the movie throws a very different light on the condition of women in Iran. Some of the dialogues and situations are indeed quite forward & reflective of an open society and one where women are not necessarily completely subjugated to men. Which makes one wonder if one is over-interpreting the middle east from television images, and maybe there exists the educated elite too, where women are an integral part of society.

In any case, this is a delightful watch with friends with strong characters & an interesting storyline."

Not the Italian Movie

Glen Koehn | London, Ontario | 11/29/2007

(3 out of 5 stars)

"Hamoun was a disappointment for me, partly because it had been overpraised with comparisons to Fellini's 8½. Both movies indeed make use of dream or fantasy sequences and both deal with a middle aged man's intellectual and marital confusions. But for the sake of future viewers, let's be clear: Hamoun is not in the same league as 8½. Mehrjui can't match Fellini's wit and brilliant visual style, and his film lacks the same coherence. Allusions to famous directors, and references to Kierkegaard, Daoism and Robert Pirsig's motorcycle book don't supply profundity to the exercise.

I'm not saying it's an awful movie. It probably works better in Farsi, but the English subtitles of my DVD are unidiomatic and ungrammatical (I mean, at any rate, the words that are visible)."