25th Hour (2002)
(film 135 minutes)

Directed by: Spike Lee
Language: English

Rating: 7/10 | Yaser Tohidi
November 25, 2019

Monty is a drug dealer recently caught and is about to go to prison to serve his sentence – seven years. The movie is about Monty’s last day of freedom that he wants to pass by his childhood friends Frank – a trader - and Jacob – a high school teacher - and his girlfriend Naturelle. Through the flash backs and dialogues/monologue, we get familiar with his personal life. Despite his job, he is a good person with good friends, and he has a relationship full of love. He helps his father. He is emotional. He finds his dog lying beside the road full of blood and he helps the dog to survive. 
Monty, in his last day of freedom, is very angry of having not given up drug dealing before being caught. He thinks Naturelle betrayed him but later that night he finds out that it was his drug dealer buddy Kostya who did betray. Returning to their apartment he apologizes Naturelle for mistrusting her. Monty asks Frank to beat him up and make him ugly because he is afraid of being raped in prison. Reaching the final minutes of his freedom, Monty drives to prison together with his father. His father gives him a very beautiful vision of escaping and starting a new life under a new name. At final, we see Monty sitting in the car with his father going towards the prison. 
25th Hour is depicting a humane picture of a drug dealer who has dignity and knows the meaning of friendship, love, family. He is perfectly aware that nobody is to be blamed for his mistakes but himself and this makes him bitter and anxious. 25th Hour dramatically shows how a beautiful life is destroyed in one night if it is based wrongly. Monty lives the life in its full and this is highlighted in contrast with his friends Frank and Jacob; Frank is a pessimist who despite having money and pleasure, does not enjoy life and misses hope, and Jacob who looks positive and moral but misses joy and pleasure in his life. Monty has a combination of both. He just selected the wrong job, or in other words, he fell into that job. 25th Hour plays around determinism and how we are caught up inside its labyrinth and different possibilities, just because of having different starting points. It may be possible to escape the labyrinth, but the cost is great. You must erase all your past if you want to start a new life and this is not an easy thing to do. 25th Hour has a poetic tune about the crazy New York, all its stereotypes, its contradictions, the crimes, problems but despite all this, offering many at least a hypothetical vision of an ideal life. 

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Joker (2019)
(film 122 minutes)

Directed by: Todd Phillips
Language: English

Rating: 4/10 | Yaser Tohidi
October 15, 2019

Arthur is living in a city rich in crime and mismanagement. He is suffering from a disorder that causes uncontrolled laughter for which he uses medication. He wants to become a comedian, but people do not understand his jokes. He is detached from the society and lives with his old mother in a modest flat. In one of his job assignments when he is entertaining at a children’s hospital, the gun that he carries for self-defense falls out of his pocket. He is later fired because of this. Disappointed and angry, he goes back home by the subway. There he kills three young adults who harassed a girl and beaded him up as his laughter starts. Succeeding to escape from this incident he continues to practice for his turn in an amateur comedy show. His performance is poorly received to the extent that he is mocked in a TV show. However, his clip showed in the TV show becomes popular and he is invited to the show. 
In the meantime, from his mother’s letters to the billionaire mayoral candidate, Thomas Wayne, Arthur finds out that he is Thomas’ illegitimate son. He confronts Thomas and asks for his compassion, but Thomas tells him that his mother is delusional. Arthur tracks his mother’s mental problem records and finds out that she was hospitalized, and she adopted a son and allowed her abusive boyfriend to harm them both. Distressed by knowing these, Arthur kills his mother. 
Arthur goes to the TV show and confesses his crimes and then he kills the TV show man. He is later arrested as the riots break out across the city against Thomas Wayne and the rich. In the riot, a man finds Thomas and his family and kills Thomas and his wife but spears their son. 
Arthur is transferred into a mental hospital. He tells his psychiatrist that she would not understand his jokes. At finale, he runs from orderlies, leaving a trail of bloodied footprints.
Joker is a social thriller which suffers from loos logical bounds; Arthur who loves his mother kills her by knowing both where abused, TV show continues as normal after Arthur reveals his crimes, mayoral candidate tries to escape the riot against himself with no security. This lack of logic is highlighted even more in passivity and fate that surrounds the main character. Arthur seems to fall in committing the crimes; his gun is an offer from his colleague, his murder in the subway is by change as his uncontrolled laughter comes out at the wrong time and also, he apparently does not have the card which describes his laughter in case of need. Viewer expects Arthur to kill Thomas when they meet but no. Arthur is passive until he understands that he has been adopted and been abused in his childhood. Then he has nothing to lose and anger fills him up. Again, he is not active, he follows his emotions and his fate. He kills his mother, his ex-colleague, and finally TV show man. His selection does not seem planned. He is unpredictable. 
There are also side stories which are not part of the main story-line. For example, the riot is against the rich and the men killed by Arthur in the subway are rich and that is why the riot hail Arthur. But he is not interested in politics although he likes being seen and appreciated by people. The riot helps him to escape from the detectives and he helps the riot in acting extremely. The relation between Joker and the riot is not defined properly. Another example is Arthur’s delusion on having a relationship with his neighbor. This has no connection to the rest of the scenario. After all it is only a delusion.
Joker fails to contextualize the story on the battle between governing rich and marginalized poor and instead it just demonizes both sides and the result is chaos and murder. These two poles of demon give the Joker a fantasy tune and holds back the viewer from getting side although the mise-en-scène is for Arthur and builds a protagonist from him. 
In short, Joker is a yellow card to a system that marginalizes the poor. If the system does not respect them, it might fall to chaos where opportunists are fishing and have no morality in their actions. It’s only a yellow card because it falls short in picturing an objective idea for resolution or a subjective character to keep on the light of hope. Joker depicts a society of problems and alienated people, but it doesn’t propose any idea for opposition. Joker fantasizes the societies with large gap between classes and keeps on showing every corner of it, but it proposes no hope. This is not what you expect to see on cinema. This you see every day around yourself or if you are lucky, just on the news. But you go to cinema and you trust the director to talk to you and create a new world or, if a responsible director, a new way and a beam of hope for bearing the difficult life. Otherwise it just adds to the problems and becomes part of it. 

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Match Point (2005)
(film 124 minutes)

Directed by: Woody Allen
Language: English

Rating: 6/10 | Yaser Tohidi
October 01, 2019

Chris meets a Rich guy, Tom, and through him he enters their house and starts a relationship with his sister, Chloe, just to have access to their wealth. He is in love with Tom’s wife, Nola, whom he sees during a family gathering and they are instantly attracted to each other. Nola, like Chris, comes from a poor family and like him, uses her sex appeal to enter the rich family. Chris marries Chloe but when he, by chance, sees Nola in the city, after Nola’s break-up with Tom, embark in a relationship with her. Nola becomes pregnant and insists that Chris should leave Chloe and come to her. Chris who reads Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevsky in an early scene of the movie sets a plan to murder Nola to run away from his situation. His plan has similarities to Raskolnikov plan in Crime and Punishment. However, Chris motivation for killing Noel does not convince the viewers unless he is a psychopath, but this also does not suit his character. Also, his attachment to the new wealthy life does not seem very strong. On the contrary his love to Nola seems stronger. This contrasts with Raskolnikov in Crime and Punishment where he commits the crime from being in a difficult economic and mental situation. These we don’t see in Chris. 
Chris is less moral than Raskolnikov and he can hide his crime although some circumstances -the fact of finding the ring from the criminal scene in the hand of another criminal- also helps him. Chris is not moral. He does not believe in justice. He just looks for his wealthy future with his wife and her family though he does not seem very much moved by the new life. Match Point plays around with the logic and morality and justice in Crime and Punishment and tries to prove that not everyone is like Raskolnikov. Why is he like that? Does he want to prove that there can be no morality, that there is no justice? What is his motivation for doing this? These questions are not addressed in the scenario and they are left to interpretation by the viewer. 
Match Point depicts weight of chance in life and how it changes our destiny, Chris, by chance, gets to know Tom who happens to break-up with Nola. Chris accidentally runs into Nola later in the city. Their relationship brings a child and finally a luck -of not removing everything from the crime scene- saves him later in police investigations. Life is unpredictable and faith plays an important part in it.

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The Wild Pear Tree (2018)
(film 188 minutes)

Directed by: Nuri Bilge Ceylan
Language: Turkish

Rating: 4/10 | Yaser Tohidi
September 25, 2019

A young graduate, Sinan, comes back home hoping to fund his book through public or private authorities of his hometown. He is also looking for job as a teacher but finding a job is not easy. Sinan is a pessimist and criticizes everybody. He finds negative response for his book just because it is not something authorities can use to strengthen their position in power. Anyways, Sinan steals an old book from his grandfather’s house and also, he sells his father’s favorite dog to fund publishing his book. Apart from this, what makes Sinan sadder is that he finds no interest for his book among people; alienated people who try to survive their difficult economic situations in different ways. His mother watches series, his friend marries a rich guy, some people find shelter in faith, and his father finds shelter in their farm after retiring from teaching. Father is showing happiness despite his difficult economic situation and criticisms he receives from his family because of his insisting passivity in facing problems. He finally abandons the well he was trying to dig to reach water and brings some kettle to the farm instead. When Sinan comes back from his military service and visits his father in the farm, he finds out that his father is the only one who read his book. Sinan restarts the well digging in the final of the movie symbolizing the same loneliness and passivity that generation after generation has fallen into him, his father and his grandfather although there is a dim hope that he might finally break through, reach water and make their farm green.
The Wild Pear Tree is a social drama happening in a city, small town and a village with eye catching camera shots. Sinan, the protagonist, is a critic of the common sense but he fails. He is going his own way of life paying the cost of becoming a stranger. However, after failing in his path of becoming a writer, he fails and restarts the well job, something they have done generation after generation. He accepts his destination of being lonely like his father and his grandfather. He finds out that his destination is the same passivity and finally, he accepts it. The Wild Pear Tree is getting a poetic tune in some plans highlighted by music and slow camera moves. This slow rhythm contrasts with the back and forth dialogues between Sinan and different people. The dialogues which are most of the time extra and distracting. These make the movie longer than necessary. In The Wild Pear Tree story does not develop. The movie shows only the situation. The only move in the story is the final where the protagonist fails and hides himself from everybody in a well and performs the most useless job, maybe just to give away his anger and survive passing his life. Sinan, the protagonist, fails and because of this, Wild Pear Tree does not give you a good feeling after watching. Sinan is locked in his situation and he cannot break free. The antagonist is the situation and it finally wins.

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High and Low (1963)
(film 143 minutes)

Directed by: Akira Kurosawa
Language: Japanese

Rating: 6/10 | Yaser Tohidi
September 13, 2019

As the title suggests the movie is perhaps about inequality, but no, it’s not! A wealthy executive of a shoe company, Gondo, opposes to adapt to a short-term profitable plan and therefore is being threatened to be kicked out of the company. But he is prepared. He has bought some shares of the company by mortgaging all he has, and he is about to buy more. Embarking to realize his plan, phone rings and he hears his son is kidnapped and he should pay a large amount of money for ransom. As he is thinking what to do, his son enters and he finds out that the kidnapper took his son’s friend, son of Gondo’s chauffeur. The kidnapper finds out his mistake but still asks for the ransom. Gondo is faced by an ethical dilemma; should he pay the ransom anyways or this matter is not his anymore? He decides to turn his head away from the matter, but his wife opposes. In another twist, his top assistant, who saw Gondo was leaning to pay the ransom, leaves him and joins his rivals in the company and ruins his plan for domination in the company. He claims when you consider ruining your life by paying the ransom why you wouldn’t do that to me. Gondo now decides to pay the ransom anyways. 
Ransom is paid and the boy is safe. Gondo is received national acclaim for his sacrifice. The second half of the movie is about finding the kidnapper. In the second half, the movie goes out of rhythm. After Gondo’s success in deciding ethically, the first challenge of the movie, Gondo’s challenge, is finished and now police with the help of media wants to do their job and respond to Gondo’s heroism. This makes High and Low a movie divided in two parts infected with disunity. Opposite to the first half that the story happens inside Gondo’s mansion on the top hill, the second half happens mostly outside in different parts of the city, and together with this change in locations, the tune changes from an ethical dilemma to a police and kidnapper hide and seek.
Finally, the kidnapper is arrested and is sentenced to death. The ransom is recovered but too late to save Gondo's property from auction. High and Low is based on inequality but this is largely left behind for the sake of developing an entertaining kidnapping police drama. Only it’s at the end that this comes back again when Gondo is faced with the kidnapper and his motives. High and Low is finally a police drama rather than a drama over ethical dilemmas or inequality. 

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The Great Beauty (2013)
(film 142 minutes)

Directed by: Paolo Sorrentino
Language: Italian

Rating: 3/10 | Yaser Tohidi
September 9, 2019

A writer in his mid-sixties, Jep Gambardella, is attracted by faint beautiful scenes around him and reflects on his life and others’. He stopped writing decades ago after his masterpiece and is now working as a journalist. He is, as he puts it, the king of high societies. It has been long like this and now that he is older, he wants to change it. He starts seeing the absurdity of the people around him though he still goes on appreciating the smallest sources of inspiration. But he is not satisfied and looks for the great beauty while every flashes of beauty hides under circumstances. He and his life are full of contradictions.
The Great Beauty depicts a touristic view of Rome. It tries to give it a higher artistic tune by showing surrealist pictures like when the writer is faced with a giraffe or when the flamingos appear in his balcony. But these scenes don’t play a role in scenario because the main story line is not strong and is not followed. There are many sequences which have no relevance to the previous one.
The Great Beauty is experiencing new editing and shooting techniques. The insist on these experiences and taking good shots, music video type of photography though, affects the story of the movie and the movie goes out of rhythm many times. As an example, when Jep hears that his first love is dead while she always loved him, he is touched, and this incident is given more effect with the nice sequence in which a lost girl calls him “nobody”. But the next sequence is irrelevant to this incident and later this incidence is forgotten. This comes back when he recounts his first love to Ramona, the stripper who is not looking for beauty in life. Ramona reminds him of his first love because she was also a pessimist. We find this when she shows her breast instead of kissing him for the first time. But again, this is ignored in coming sequences. And that is why The Great Beauty lacks a story line. It’s a 2 hours video clip of a retired writer seeing the beauties offered in Rome. The ending when he decides to write again seems extra. What is he writing about? We don’t know. Maybe about his first love. But that doesn’t matter because his first love is insubstantial in the scenario anyways. The Great Beauty depicts the life of high society in art in Rome. Nothing more! 

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Tokyo Story (1953)

(film 136 minutes)

Directed by: Yasujirō Ozu

Language: Japanese

Rating: 8/10 | Yaser Tohidi

September 2, 2019

A retired couple live with their youngest daughter, Kyōko, in a small town called Onomichi when they decide to visit their son, daughter and widowed daughter-in-law in Tokyo. Their eldest son, Kōichi, is a pediatrician, and their eldest daughter, Shige, runs a hairdressing salon. Old couple expect their son and daughter live comfortably in Tokyo but what they see is just a busy life in an industrialized city and their stay just adds to their problems. Kōichi and Shige don’t appreciate the presence of their parents although it might be the last time they visit them. Kōichi and Shige are occupied with economic and occupation circumstances and they think that their parents come to visit Tokyo and enjoy the city but parents just want to visit their children. Kōichi and Shige even plan to offer their parents a hot spring spa outside the city to get rid of them. It is even cheaper than taking them around Tokyo. But the spa hotel does not fit the old couple as it’s having young guests staying late at night drinking and playing cards. The old couple are again not happy there.

The only exception is Noriko, the widow of their middle son Shōji, who was missing in action and presumed dead during the war. Noriko is working in a trading company and she is happy to take time from her busy office job to take the old couple on a sightseeing tour of metropolitan Tokyo. She is happy to even invite the old couple in her modest room despite her difficult economic situation. She is willing to spare some time with them. She even helps them with money.

In spa hotel, the old couple remark on how their children have changed and decide to end their trip and head back home, but mother feels sick, as if this trip made her sick because she was healthy and solid in the beginning. On the way back, she feels sick again and they get off half way and stay with their younger son, Keizō. Mother dies upon arrival in Onomichi. Children gather for her last moments. Kōichi and Shige even bring funeral clothes and don’t seem much touched by the loss of their mother. They don’t care about their father and leave immediately. They ask Noriko to remain longer and she accepts.

After they leave, when Kyōko expresses to Noriko her anger about her siblings’ selfishness toward their parents, Noriko responds that everyone has his own life and it is inevitable that children leave their parents one day. Later Noriko informs her father-in-law that she must return to Tokyo. Father expresses his thanks to Noriko for her kindness despite not being related by blood. Noriko confesses her loneliness. She leaves Onomichi to Toklyo with a watch as a memento from the late mother-in-law. Father remains behind with solitude he must endure in his home in Onomichi.

Tokyo Story is a manifesto against capitalist growth that concentrates population in big cities and transforms people to money seeking beings competing all the time but void of love even to their old parents. Old folks playing still with old rules and lagging to catch up are homeless and lonely in these cities. Tokyo Story show the post war Japanese society. The society that is transforming rapidly and therefore is full of contradictions. The difference between older generation’s expectations and younger generation is huge. The transformation has been too fast. There is a contrast between people’s image - they live in traditional indoors, eat Japanese food and wear traditional clothes - and their mentally that is transformed to rootless beings. It’s a new area. Should we accept it or not? Is it inevitable? The complication around these dilemmas is put in Noriko’s character.

Noriko desires to keep the past memories like her love to her missing husband and his parents. She lives in a corridor room and she works in a trading company but despite these pressures to abide to the new rules, she resists and seeks what she desires although she accepts others’ ways of life. Her decisions are fast and doubtless. However, inside, she feels lonely and broken and she is anxious about her future. Her character rises to a symbol of scratch from a lost war that made a gap between children and their parents, children who left their old culture as they left their parents. Noriko remains to keep the hopes; still there is someone who didn’t abide by new rules although not sure and indecisive about her future. She might abide soon to the new rules because she suffers from being different. But anyways the hope is still there!

Character of Noriko is making Tokyo Story philosophic. She depicts a person who have lost her bright future not because of herself but because of outside circumstances. She just couldn’t rise up again. However, she still keeps on going but just to exist. Life is disappointing for her but still worth to try. She offers hope although she herself is full of despair. The past is a nice memory for her. No, she is not living in the past but when the past comes in any form, she cannot resist but to love it. She depicts delicately the human condition trapped in time and determinism of circumstances.

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Parasite (2019)
(film 132 minutes)

Directed by: Bong Joon-ho

Language: Korean

Rating: 5/10 | Yaser Tohidi

August 22, 2019

A poor family opens its place inside a bourgeois family's mansion as the mentors, driver and housekeeper by performing funny tricks. One night that the bourgeois family is on a trip, the poor family gather in the house and enjoy a luxury night until the former housekeeper comes to the door and asks for entrance saying she forgot something in the house and that is nothing but her husband who has lived in a hidden bunker in the basement for years. She also finds out that the newcomers in the house are a family. At the same time the bourgeois family call and say they have shorten their trip and they are coming back in a few minutes. The poor family puts the former housekeeper and her husband in the hidden bunker injuring severely the former housekeeper and go home except the mother, the new housekeeper. Next day is the birthday of the boy of the bourgeois family and every one is there. During the celebration, the husband of the former housekeeper comes out of the bunker after injuring severely the son of the poor family and kills the daughter of the poor family and in response, her mother kills him. Triggered by his daughter and son wounds and more importantly by father of the bourgeois family's disgust over the smell of the husband of the former housekeeper, father of the poor family kills the father of the bourgeois family. Father runs away and finds nowhere to hide but the hidden bunker. At the end, his son promises that he will buy that house one day and brings his father out of the bunker.

Parasite is a black comedy coming out of the wealth inequality of two families. It has a good rhythm in the first half but from the moment that the former housekeeper comes, the tune changes. From this moment the logic of the incidents is not strong, like the sequence of the incidents in the birthday when the father does not react when his daughter is wounded but gets angry when the father of the bourgeois family turns his face from the bad smell of the husband of the former housekeeper! The first half is engaging and funny when it shows how the poor family cheat easily the bourgeois family, but the second half lacks strong logical bonds and the story line changes direction, challenge between the poor family and the former housekeeper and her husband. Moreover, in Parasite, characters are not truly introduced. The scenario actually refrains from getting closer to the characters. The movie is focusing only on the incidents. Anyways, the movie's ending is brilliant.


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Through the Olive Trees (1994)
(film 103 minutes)

Directed by: Abbas Kiarostami

Language: Persian

Rating: 6/10 | Yaser Tohidi

August 18, 2019

A movie crew wants to make a movie in a location hit by earthquake one year ago. During the production, we find out that Hossein, the actor selected for the movie, has asked for marriage just before the earthquake with the actress, Tahereh, who lost her parents in the earthquake, and now that they play in this movie, it’s another opportunity for Hossein to ask for her marriage again. Last time, his proposal was rejected because he didn’t have house but now that nobody has house, he might have a chance. Their affair is interfering with the movie making as the movie making in their affair, and this is building the story line.
Through the Olive Trees depicts intimate and beautiful scenes from villagers and their surrounding despite the destruction caused by earthquake. Their life is calm and slow and closer to the rhythm of the nature and this not only attracts the movie crew in a way that they become part of their life but also the viewer. You might think at the beginning what a basic and primitive life they have but step by step you get closer to their life and you see how full and rich it is. We see that the life continues one year after the earthquake with all its beauties. Villagers don’t care about the production of the movie and it’s difficulties. They even don’t care about earthquake and death. They are just occupied with life and all its burdens and beauties. Among all these, we see also a love story. Hossein’s love to Tahereh and his persistence to marry her are convincing. We wish them to marry. Hossein's love and the pictures of this movie will stay in your mind.


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A Separation (2011) 
(film 123 minutes)

Directed by: Asghar Farhadi

Language: Persian

Rating: 3/10 | Yaser Tohidi

August 15, 2019

A middle class family is at the verge of breaking up, why? Wife wants to immigrate because, among others, she wants to raise her daughter in a better place but the husband feels strong attachments to his home-country especially because of his ill father. They find the only way is divorce but the judge finds the couple's problems insufficient to warrant divorce. So the wife leaves the house although their daughter decides to stay with her dad. The husband hires a person to manage the house and to take care of his old father who suffers Alzheimer. This is the beginning of a chain of incidents which put the husband in a difficult situation. Everybody is lying or at least hiding the reality at some point during these incidents except the wife who tries to resolve the problems by offering money, forgetting that the money cannot solve everything when moralities come into place. Moralities from persons who lied before! Finally, the parents file another divorce application -although the grandfather is dead this time and the man's excuse is irrelevant!- and this time it’s accepted and the judge leaves their daughter to choose with whom she would like to live.

A Separation is forming a social drama but is unable to stick to its original question: should the daughter leave her home-country or not? Majority of the time spent on the incidents and small details. All the characters are gray and there is no protagonist. They are locked in their situation and cannot select between putting moralities on top or going after an easy life. Nothing new, as we are facing with these situations in our life and probably it has been always like this in human societies. Analogously, the scenario line is not clear and therefore it reduces to a melodrama between two families from two different levels of society and the hates that they have towards each other, although sometimes they love each other! As you see, whatever you start saying about this movie is not true! This is coming from a scenario with no clear direction in mind. 

The movie throws questions about morality but leaves them unanswered and makes the viewers busy with chain of incidents till the next question. There is no effort to answer those questions. Therefore, there is no aim or message for the ending. At the end we are faced with more questions than answers.

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A Man of Integrity (2017)
(film 120 minutes)

Directed by: Mohammad Rasoulof
Language: Persian

Rating: 4/10 | Yaser Tohidi
August 13, 2019

A previously student activist who tries to enjoy a quiet life with his wife - a high-school dean - and his son by fish farming is faced with (beside financial problems) one problem: a company operating in the area where they live is interested in their house. The company is powerful in the region where corruption prevails. The movie continues to show how the company makes problems for the man, our yet protagonist, the moralist, and how corruption blocks him from resolving these problems. He cannot accept to pay bribe although his life is in critical situation. His wife, who supports his moralities at the beginning, cannot bare the problems anymore and encourages him to resolve the problems by any means even paying bribes, but he refuses. 
A man of Integrity is a social drama about corruption augmentation. The man is our protagonist in the beginning when he fights the situation while putting moralities on top. But at the end, he fails and changes to a monster. So the story does not conclude to any promising ending. Positive social function - catharsis if you like - is a prerequisite for a good plot for a social drama. A social drama results to a positive/good feeling when there is some hope in the plot. This is lacking in A man of Integrity. 
Apart from this, the movie includes some extra side stories, such as the minority family whose daughter commits suicide, which are not related to the main line of the story and make the movie go out of rhythm. 

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Chernobyl (2019)
(miniseries 5 episodes 60–72 minutes)

Directed by: Johan Renck
Language: English

Rating: 2/10 | Yaser Tohidi
August 12, 2019

Chernobyl is a historical drama trying to dramatizes the story of the April 1986 nuclear plant disaster which occurred in the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic (Soviet Union), however it fails to do so because it fails, to the large extent, in following a dramatic story. 
The main story line is the denial by the Soviet Union officials about the extent of the disaster. But this story line is referred to only in few dialogues and scenes and there is not enough dramatic evidence. On the other hand, in some cases we see full support for addressing the incident from highest officials. Then, this story line gives way to a new one: what was the main cause of the incident and how to reveal that in spite of KGB monitoring? Again here, without much drama, the story line is concluded and the main cause is revealed in the court. Apart from these two main story lines, sometimes you want to follow the story of the people involved in the disaster but it does not happen and instead, the miniseries depicts some of the lesser known stories of the disaster as if it's goal is just to inform you about them and does not want you to be involved with the stories of the people. This is in contrast with the form of the miniseries, i.e. the mise en scène implies dramatic stories but they are not followed. Mise en scène does not imply a fact-by-fact documentary for an incident.
Anyhow, Chernobyl depicts eye-catching pictures of the incident, logistics, hospitals and official buildings of Soviet Union. 
If you want to know a bit more about the Chernobyl disaster - and you don't care about the legitimacy of the story being told or you will follow it up later -  this miniseries is for you. But if you want to watch a series in which people's stories keep you engaged for some time, Chernobyl is not for you.


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