THE UNSEEN (KAGHAZ-PAREH HA)

Writer/Director: Behzad Nalbandi

Rating: ★ ★ ★ ★ ½

One of the most confronting and heartbreaking cinematic works of the year, Iranian graphic artist Behzad Nalbandi’s The Unseen speaks to the inhumane treatment and hopeless futures of derelict and homeless women taken from the streets of Tehran. Utilising cardboard stop-motion artistry to ensure the anonymity of and provide a rare freedom for his subjects to have a voice, Nalbandi’s 5-year project is both a stunning visual work and bold indictment of Iran’s ongoing adherence to brutal patriarchal rule.

The five women that the director speaks with are, figuratively and literally, ‘cardboard people’, the derogatory term used in his homeland to describe those that live in boxes on the street. When international dignitaries are due to visit, police and government officials round up the homeless population of the capital and crowd them into shelters; the men are released after a few days, but the women are not. They become wards of the state, their freedom dependent upon a family member collecting them.

Many of the women have fled abusive men, including fathers, siblings, boyfriends and husbands; most have been raped and/or had drugs such as meth, heroin and crack forced upon them, with several turning to prostitution in exchange for shelter, clothes or the next hit. Once incarcerated in the government-backed ‘shelters’, they have little chance of ever being released.

Provided with unofficial access, Nalbandi (always off-screen) gently probes and compassionately listens while the women relate the downward spirals of their lives. The details are relentlessly shocking and almost always stem from toxic male influence and the systemic abuse women have traditionally suffered. All contend with chronic mental health ailments and are addicts struggling with sobriety (Iran is in the grip of a hard-drug epidemic, with over 6.5 million users). The recounting of the life paths that have led the women to their involuntary incarceration makes for shattering testimony.

The women’s voices are given an on-screen avatar thanks to the director’s remarkable skill with cardboard of all shapes and contours. The interview room in which the sessions took place is recreated, as are the broken streets and askew structures of Tehran’s landscape. Facial details, comprised of precisely coloured and intricately layered material, give true personality to the women (they are given a pseudonym and their ages are revealed, but little else other than what they tell us). In one lump-in-the-throat moment, Nalbandi comments on the beauty of one women’s eyes, soliciting a sweet giggle and the corresponding facial expressions which resonate profoundly via the cardboard artistry.

Revisiting the institution several months after completing his recordings, Nalbandi learns some of his young interviewees have died; ironically, the number of women being held has increased far beyond the capacity of the facility (a meagre staff roster and only 30 beds service over 90 detainees). There is no avoiding the bleakness of The Unseen; this is not the kind of factual film that ends on an upward trajectory of hope or spruiks advocacy. Such false niceties would not honour the daily struggles and aimless destinies of the film’s five souls, each a life ruined by dark forces beyond their control.

Nominated for BEST ANIMATED FEATURE FILM at The 2019 Asia Pacific Screen Awards, to be held Thursday November 21 at the Brisbane Convention and Exhibition Centre.