For my Sunday movie, I decided to watch a film that was on Plex and it’s a free movie that you can find that is on Plex’s own free movie library.
Under the Smoky Roof is a Persian (Farsi) movie about a family that is in turmoil and is living a life of no direction and love.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ap8ddvl5wGI
The story initially revolves around a father and a husband that is living a double life he is unhappily married and every time he goes off to work he is going to go see his side chick.
Everything at the start is going as well as can be expected he is running a factory and at the same time providing for his son and wife and they are quite well off it seems as if on top of watching this movie I can see a lot of progress in Iranian lifestyles from having big screen TVs and fridges with icemakers/water dispensers etc.
Nothing new for western audiences and I would even say for the old school Persians nothing new but even under the Islamic regimen, it seems people are well off. Still, it can also show the massive gap between the classes of society.
A simple life story but it did hit some home truths about how you can live in a family under the same roof but not be present from a wife being lonely and trying to rekindle the flame with a husband that does not see her inner or outer beauty.
A son goes on his mary way with not a care in the world and thinks he is a grown-ass man and makes decisions that eventually get the better of him.
As with most Persian/Iranian movies, it’s a sad story but at least you are not dealing with any suicidal scenes.
What I liked about this movie was the glitters of what love can be and the truth about how in most families the lack thee of or no communication at all and how it can flow from one generation to the next.
Even moving to his side chick the husband ends up with the same problem that he could not talk to his wife or mistress and the fact that his son knew about it all along and how he organized for his parents to go see a shrink even though they went separately this was a good scene to show the Persian society that it’s normal or ok to go and find help if they have hit a roadblock.
The performances were great and well done, whenever the actors get on your nerves this means that they are doing an excellent job because they are getting you to react to the movie even though its a story of fiction it’s based on as mentioned earlier home truths on what life can be like or how life is for some folk.
This is a straight story like with most Persian cinema there are no love scenes or any violence although there was a fight scene that all the sound FX budget went to, as you could see they tried to rough each other up without actually hitting each other.
The WWE would have been proud.
A different type of foreign film that is a thought provoker something you may want to watch. When film making is about making a difference and not just about escaping reality but making you face it head on.
A solid 6.5/10 kids might find this boring