What follows is the result of an idea to connect the field of philosophy and thought with the world of drama. Let us choose sentences to ponder from the statements of the members of the philosophical group, which are archived in the “Chistiha Blog” (http://chistiha.blogfa.com); and after manipulating the concepts of those statements, and doing a brief exercise and editing, let us create a dramatic idea that will continue to form another dialogue, another concept, and another thought.
In the principles of drama writing, “ideation” and “drafting” have a specific method; but we tried to be one step before the idea and plot. At the same stage of mental spark or, in our own words, the “study” stage, where the writer’s hand is open to writing down any image, concept, or point. Here, we have not limited ourselves to not mentioning the technical instructions, performance arrangements, dialogue, staging, and other matters, leaving them for more detailed plans; on the contrary, we have completely written down whatever came to mind at the moment.
During our group sessions, we came to the conclusion that it was not necessary to have refined and precise plans from our discussions. It was only necessary to immediately edit and record whatever came to mind as a “study.”
And now we share the same with you. May these exercises and sketches be the beginning of a path to step on the bridge between philosophy and drama.
Ideas on the Bridge from Philosophy to Drama: Etude One Hundred and Twenty-First
Note: These sketches have been registered with the Islamic Culture and Guidance Department. And the intellectual property belongs to the author.
These sketches are only allowed to be republished on the “Chistiha” site.
Idea number one hundred and twenty-one
Etude No. 121
Minimalist feature film
Based on #Issue_No._4 in the Paul Group: “Does Depression Exist?”
The entire event takes place in one morning until evening, and the location of the film is also a limited space. In this respect, it resembles Abdolreza Kahani’s film “Without Self and Without Purpose.”
The entire film is related to the future aspirations of these characters. And it is reminiscent of Chekhov’s play “Three Sisters.”
The entire film is set in two one-bedroom apartment units opposite each other on the first floor of Block B of a three-story complex; in one of the northern cities, probably Gorgan or Bandar Turkman. All the units except for these two units and one on the third floor of the same block are empty. The windows of both units and the window in the middle corridor have windows on only one side; and that is the courtyard of the complex, which is closed on both sides by Blocks A and C, each of which has a covered parking lot on the ground floor. And they are opposite each other. Opposite are a short wall and railings, the entrance gate to the complex, and a guardhouse that has not had a guard for years. The garden in the middle also shows that it has not had a gardener for a long time.
Unit number 1, which belongs to Ms. Amineh, has two doors to this corridor. One to the entrance of the apartment and one to the storage room. Now, workers have brought this storage room to open its wall into the apartment. They are demolishing the wall so that this storage room can be used as a room. Also living in unit number 2 is Marta, a Russian woman who came from Siberia and is a tenant.
The device used in this film is the actors’ own narration next to this window. Every time they look at the window, they review their memories inside themselves and we hear the voice of their minds.
The scriptwriter must be familiar with the life story of the characters. And include the entire story of their fate in the dialogues and monologues. So that it fits perfectly into the heart of the film’s story.
Characters:
Amine Khanum: An elderly woman, brunette, with green eyes. There is still a trace of her youthful beauty in her wrinkled face. And until she speaks and her one set of white dentures are visible, she has a balanced complexion.
Salmaz: She is thin, lanky, and withered. She has a sad face and looks a little dumb, of course.
Sanaz: Her brunette skin is like her mother, Amine Khanum, and her honey eyes and curled eyelashes are like her father. And she considers these eyes and eyelashes to be the secret of her success.
Marta: A lonely woman who comes from the border of Turkmenistan and Kazakhstan. Her white skin is like glass on pink veins. She loves Uzbek cuisine.
First, let’s get to know the story of each; and then the plot of this film.
Amineh Khanum is the second wife of Mr. Soleiman Nejad, who has been dead for seven months now. Amineh Khanum was once employed by the Red Lion and Sun Society of Iran. During the revolution, they wanted to buy her back, but they retired her through an acquaintance. And she has a pension. Mr. Soleiman Nejad was also a retired railway worker at the time. His first wife was his cousin, and their daughter Salmaz was seven or eight years old when Mr. Soleiman Nejad met Amineh Khanum on one of his trips to Tehran and at one of the charity bazaars of the Red Lion and Sun Society, and he became so enamored with her that he immediately proposed to her, they got married, and he brought her to the north. A year passed before Amineh Khanum found out that Mr. Soleiman Nejad had a wife and a child. However, after a while, both women came to terms with this choice and event and were forced to accept it. And Salmaz even came to Amineh Khanum’s house and they were like a loving mother and daughter together. Until Amineh Khanum also has a daughter and names the child Elnaz out of her love for Salmaz. And these two sisters, whose age difference is more than ten years, have been good and friendly together and have grown up. When Mr. Soleiman Nejad’s house was a one-story house in a neighborhood near the customs market in Bandar Turkman. And both sisters would go and browse the market. And at that time, Salmaz’s mother fell ill and died. And Salmaz also dropped out of school. And a young boy, named Shahab, came from their neighborhood and asked to live together. And Mr. Soleiman Nejad also saw no choice and after opposition, finally accepted. They called a fifteen-year-old concubine and the boy came to Salmaz’s house. A smoking boy, unemployed and shameless. All these years, they had spent their lives begging from this father and his own meager parents. And all this time, Salmaz was happy to cook alone. Romantic cooking. Over the years, they have sold everything they had. Even the house itself. And one of the misfortunes of that life, as they say, was that Shahab had become addicted to pills over the years. And he occasionally gave these pills to Salmaz.
Elnaz, on the other hand, is the opposite of Salmaz. She spent her girlhood in the seventies and eighties with many boyfriends, and then she chose one of the richest of them to marry and went to her husband’s house with an elaborate wedding party. And they have a son who is now two years old. Before her marriage, Elnaz had finished both English and German by the last semester of a language class near their house. But after her marriage, she has not used those two languages at all. And this bothers her a little. Of course, there has been no student here who wants to learn English or German privately.
Now, after seventeen years, Salmaz and Shahab have separated. And in fact, Shahab has left Salmaz. With these ridiculous words: “We have lived together for two more years.” Words that Salmaz was used to, but in the end, after seventeen years of hardship, and accepting whatever he knew was his fate during these seventeen years, it has caused him more and more confusion and bewilderment. It has been a few mornings since he came to Amineh Khanum’s house empty-handed. With one or two suitcases of clothes. And he has given everything he had to Shahab.
Amineh Khanum Mehraban, who has been familiar with the spirit of the orphaned girls in the Lion and Sun community for years, has now welcomed her; and for two months they have started moving Salmaz’s small belongings and furniture. And they have set up a room for Salmaz that only opens to the outside corridor and acts as a storage room. In which she has placed her single bed and her suitcases of clothes. And she has arranged it to her own taste. But the big problem is that in this winter and the cold weather, every time Salmaz wants to go to her room, she has to come out of the house and go to her room. That is why they have decided to bring workers and destroy the wall so that Salmaz can move around from the inside. And another big problem for Salmaz is that she does not want anyone to know her secret that sometimes she has to buy those pills. And she does not know at all who to trust to get these benzodiazepine pills for her. Shahab always gets these pills from pharmacies without a prescription. And Selmaz doesn’t know what to do. She has a commotion inside her.
Let’s tell Marta’s story too. Marta has endured hardships in life that she is unwilling to tell. She is a beautiful and resilient woman. And she speaks a Turkmen dialect. She sold all her possessions and left her country. When she arrived in Iran, an employee of the Bandar Turkmen railway offered her to rent this apartment. And he himself arranged for her accommodation. And he rented this apartment for her. But after settling in this apartment, Marta has not answered his phone twice. And she is happy about that. All Marta wants is to be able to do something with the little money she has left that will generate income for a few days. And her only wish is to be able to take orders for Uzbek food, cook it, and sell it.
During these two months, Marta and Selmaz got to know each other and most of their talk has been about cooking. And their lack of money. And their lack of income. The father’s pension, which is now being divided in half between Amine Khanum and Salmaz, is another topic of conversation. But it seems that all these future plans and plans for cooking together and selling food to restaurants are nothing more than dreams and fantasies. And Marta sometimes doubts her own words. The turmoil inside her is no less than that of her neighbor across the street. When she goes to the window and we hear the voice of her mind. Her dark future is drawn before our eyes and hers, even more shocking than her past.
The story of the film begins with Amine Khanum, as usual, busy with crocheting with a spool of thread, and weaving a tablecloth. First, the builder calls and Amine Khanum talks to the builder about demolishing the wall, and the measurements, the time of demolition, and the amount of money, which is heavy. And we understand Salmaz’s situation.
Meanwhile, Elnaz and her son arrive. They have come to help move Amina’s furniture. She is supposed to stay here for two days to help; but more than paying attention to her mother and sister, she is paying attention to her child and talking to her husband on the phone. And sometimes she goes to the refrigerator and tries to be a perfect hostess in cooking porridge for her child and frying chicken for tonight’s dinner. Benna has quoted a high price, and when Marta leaves, whose door is open and in the middle of the incident, she comes to the hallway and asks Benna for his phone number so that if he is going to separate this open kitchen from the hall with a temporary wall and a door, he can estimate how long it will take and how much it will cost. Anyway, the kitchen he wants to set up to serve restaurant food cannot be the same as the room. Here Benna tells Marta that he cannot build a temporary wall. And Martha says that she can’t build a permanent wall because her house is rented. And she gives up. Salmaz, who has been looking at the builder with awe until now, feels that since he is a bit dumb, the look he has at the young builder is not a normal look. It is a bit lustful, childish, and stupid. He even has this longing look in the hallway when his neighbor on the third floor comes up the stairs. And it seems that the tax office officer has already come to inspect this apartment for inheritance tax, and Amineh Khanum has noticed Salmaz’s look at the tax officer. Amineh Khanum thinks to herself that a terrible disaster has happened. And she doesn’t know what will happen in the future. And what will he do with this dumb, stupid girl who loves her job. And in a dialogue, she tells this to Elnaz.
Incidentally, when the builder was about to go down the stairs, Salmaz goes to him to bring up the subject and open the conversation; so that he can trust him in this false and ridiculous hope that he can get the pills for her. But it doesn’t go there. And Amina Khanum calls Salmaz and Salmaz’s words are left half-spoken and Banna leaves while shaking her head. Banna also notices Salmaz’s unusual state. And this will cause Amina Khanum’s dismay.
After Banna leaves, their dialogues and monologues begin; and we, the audience, understand the mood of each one while moving the furniture that they don’t know should be moved or not.
Later, as Elnaz goes back and forth to Marta’s house, we realize that every time Elnaz leaves her room, she doesn’t know whether to close the door or not, and if she doesn’t, Marta’s house is also open, and since it’s cold and the third-floor neighbor might come and peek, it’s better for Salmaz’s room to be closed. And the same goes for Amina Khanom’s house. And these monologues behind the window, while they look at the empty guard room, are placed in the middle of the film as a recurring motif. Time continuity is very important here; and the role of the moving camera, which slowly passes through the open doors. And we witness the inner dialogue of the people; right in the middle of the conversation with others. Usually, when they leave their monologue and the window and return to talk to each other, it’s as if they put on a happy face and smile, making themselves appear kind and hopeful.
In one of the conversations between Elnaz and Amine Khanum, while they thought that Salmaz had stayed at Marta’s house and had not yet come, Salmaz overhears the mother and daughter’s words. And she feels bad. She quickly goes to her room and makes a decision she shouldn’t have made. She wants to take all the pills at once. Marta’s shadow appears through the door of Salmaz’s room, as she enters. And it’s too late. Salmaz has swallowed all the pills at once. Her head is spinning and she sees Marta like a ghost. And she has a seizure. And foam comes out of her mouth. Amine Khanum and Elnaz have also lost their limbs. Elnaz moves the child away from this scene and calls the emergency phone. The excitement of this episode is intensified by short cuts and filming with a camera in her hand. Finally, the emergency officers arrive from nearby.
They come over to Salmaz. Her pupils are completely dilated. And she is in critical condition. The officers say we have to take him to the hospital before it’s too late. And Amineh Khanum, who knows that Salmaz has neither an insurance book nor money for treatment, doesn’t know what to do. The emergency services quickly bring the stretcher and take Salmaz away. Elnaz signs the form they want to fill out. And she says you go, I’ll come with my husband. And at the last moment, while Salmaz’s slippers at the door of her room get caught on one of the officers’ feet and she falls in the middle of the stairs, they take her away on a stretcher.
All three women witness from the hallway window how the emergency services put Salmaz in the ambulance and left. And the end credits music is with a poem whose content matches the theme of depression. And that’s it.
Author: B. Khosravani
It is recalled that any copying and extraction of these ideas, from an ethical and legal perspective, is only possible by mentioning the address, and use for performance will only be possible if the author’s written consent is obtained.