Shadow

Imagine you are in this kind of condition: an Iranian mother who lives in a high rise building in the middle of war situation. At the same time, you were haunted by a jinn. That’s the story you would see when you are watching Under The Shadow. I have seen it a few days ago after the movie was released in 2016. Formerly, I have heard several reviews said that this Iranian film served us an intense fear and terror feeling. Does it really do?

Under The Shadow tells the story of an Iranian wife whom his husband leave her and their daughter to go to work. It was situated in the early 1980s, when Iran and Iraq confronted in a military war. One day, their building was attacked. On one hand, she has to survived, but on the other hand she have to persuade her daughter to come along. The problem is, they were haunted by a ghost. Moreover, they were separated by the spirit’s incitement.

This film showed us of how Iranian portray ghost appearance. Same with how we see ghost in Indonesia (and another country in Southeast Asia), Iranian—based on Under The Shadow—also see women as a the scariest ghost. Even so, in this film she came with no face. All of her body was covered with a spreading fabric, and using that cloth to terrorized her (allegedly) daughter. I’m not sure about whether she was really are or not, because there were no blatant clue to said so. The figure of mother only showed through the dialogue and writing in the book whom saved secretly by the main character. 

Perhaps, that was just the way of how Iranian filmmaker delivered the story. Once in the past, I have watched another Iranian movie called A Separation. That Abbas Kiarostami’s movie was not precisely ended up the divorce process of one household. We as a viewer, decided by ourselves with considering each and every character involved on it. I guess—without being generalizing—that’s the beauty of Iranian art of moving pictures. []