imperfection is perfection
Sporadic film reviews by a wanna-be filmmaker
UNDER THE SHADOW [2016]
Directed by Babak Anvari
Written by Babak Anvari
Starring: Narges Rashidi, Avin Manshadi, Bobby Naderi
A revolution often causes more problems that it resolves, and considering the eight year war that took place after the 1979 Iranian revolution, not to mention the reasons behind the revolution itself, Under The Shadows is an incredibly unique and tense situation to create a supernatural horror scenario. Does this film capitalise on its unique setting?
Shideh isn’t in a good place; she wants to return to her studies, but her participation in activist activity disallows her from returning. She tries to explain that she was young and everyone was acting that way during those times, but her words fall on deaf ears. Compounding this is the fact that her husband is a fully qualified doctor, which was her ambition also, and not only that, he has been called to the front-lines as Iraq and Iran trade horribly inaccurate missiles, leaving Shideh to care for their only daughter Dorsa in an uncomfortable and unsure situation.
One of these missiles lands directly on top of the apartment building that Shideh lives in, but miraculously it doesn’t explode. This kicks into gear a number of extremely typical supernatural scares, only one really leaving an impact, the rest utterly forgettable. This tries to be an Iranian Babadook with the single mother angle, but the tension isn’t there, the scares are horribly clichéd, and the chemistry between parent and child is not very apparent.
Shideh is left on her own to look after her daughter while some mildly spooking situations arise, but that is as far as this goes. The Babadook this is not; very far from it in fact. It feels like an incomplete film.
This is a horribly mislabelled and confused film. The dramatic and realistic situations are brilliantly realised, offering some interesting insight into those tense times in Iran. However, the supernatural elements don’t 
just feel tacked on without much connection to the rest of the film, they are extremely thin and far from plentiful, or powerful. How this could scare anyone I have no idea. It also suffers from an extremely underwhelming ending. I had thought that the tension had been, despite its many flaws, building nicely… Then the film suddenly ended. This is an excellently produced and extremely well shot debut feature that is ultimately very confused as to what its identity is.
Half a sixer
3/6
20 Comments on “UNDER THE SHADOW [2016]”
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imperfection is perfection 
Although you had mixed thoughts, I am thoroughly intrigued and wish to check this film out. If anything, to see what I make of it.
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its certainly a unique situation to base a horror movie. It just didn’t work for me but I’m really picky when it comes to horror films
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IT sounded like an unusual setting. I may seek it out to form my own thoughts on it.
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would love to hear what you make of it, you’re probably less picky that I am ;P
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Hey I can be picky when I need to be Jordan. Depends on the movie at hand.
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Fair enough! (-:
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I always attempt to give a movie the benefit of the doubt.
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yeah I’m a little more pessimistic I think. I reckon you’ll like this, as like I said, the setting alone is extremely fascinating. The whole movie could have been about just that and it perhaps could have been a lot better.
Then again, critics seem to disagree with me a bit on this one. No surprise there, I rarely agree with ‘critics’ 😛
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I recently reviewed this if you’re interested, dude.
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Here’s the link to my review. https://vinnieh.wordpress.com/2017/01/26/under-the-shadow/
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finally snapped out of my funk and read this mate. Good to hear you liked it a lot more than I did!!
Hopefully I can get something written soon, its been one post for this whole year. Summer depresses the fuck outta me =/
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Take it easy brother. If you ever want to talk, I’m here dude.
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I really appreciate that mate, I don’t have a ton of mates IRL. You don’t use twitter or facebook do you? I kinda had to force myself to use them cos barely any of the friends I do have communicate via phone anymore. Its weird man, if I wanna get a hold of someone facebook or twitter is a better bet than calling them. Which to me seems completely backwards!!
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You’ve got tons of people who care about you in the blogging world.
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thanks mate 🙂
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Oh I disagree, i really liked it, I thought it was quite subtle and disturbing. By the way, your first book sounds fascinating, I’m gonna have to check that out
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Most seem to disagree with me on this one Madeleine! Perhaps I wasn’t in the right mood. Or perhaps I was spoiled by The Babadook, that thing had me literally on the edge of my seat
Oh, and I would love it if you had the time whenever to read my book 🙂
I can’t believe its still not finished after so many years, but comments like yours spur me on to keep going, to FINALLY have a finished first draft!
cheers 🙂
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I will definitely read it! I liked the Babadook too, maybe you should try it again
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I like to try most movies at least once, I probably will at some point. Though what I really loved about The Babadook is that the mother is the most scary thing in the movie! The last act is incredible
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Definitely, very good
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