Final Whistle - how far should you get involved when you might be able to help?

Niki Karimi's engrossing film examines many issues, notably including mistreatment of women in Iran and the responsibility of those with more influence, particularly artists, to use that influence to help those who are marginilised.  She cleverly examines them together in a way that means one issue sheds a deeper light on the other.

The plot follows a documentary film-maker, Sahar who becomes involved in the life of an extra, Maliheh, working on a TV drama made by her husband.  Maliheh is trying desperately to get together enough money to save her mother who is waiting execution for killing her husband in self defence and to protect Maliheh. Karimi doesn't overdramatise or sensationalise the plot but uses it as a vehicle to examine several interesting moral dilemmas, which have no easy answers.  In the Q&A after the film, Karimi revealed that she made the film as a self-reflexive exercise to examine her responsibilities as a film maker rather than to particularly highlight issues. The success of this approach is that it brings to light injustice without being preachy or self-righteous. Sahar will go to pretty far to do what she can for Maliheh, her husband is much less keen. But the film does not judge her husband too harshly - would most of us give up the deposit on a home we had worked years for to help out someone we didn't know very well, however much we believed that it was right?

Another interesting take on these topics that Karimi brings out in the film is both the limits that artistic influence can have and the instinct towards a one-sided crusade.  In one particularly memorable scene, Sahar makes a short documentary and takes it to Maliheh's step-father's family, hoping to persuade them to drop the charges.  However, the film recognises the distress of that family - the step-father may have been an awful person, but his death has left his family bereft and Sahar's determination to help Maliheh just causes them even more pain.  And her failure to convince them shows that however lofty her intentions, for some situations, artistic endeavour cannot always solve hard, real world problems. The film is not saying it is not worth trying to use your talents towards confronting injustice, but it does it recognising there will always be limits.

Although a fiction film, Karimi has used hand-held cameras to give her film a documentary film - a clever way to add to the ideas discussed in the film.  It is also a very effective way of setting the emotional mood of the film.  When Sahar feels determined, or under pressure, or in other ways energetic, the camera is always moving, giving the film a really urgency and energy.  But when she feels defeated or deflated, it is much more still; you can almost feel her hope draining away through the camera work alone.

The story and the way it is told are engrossing through out - initially there are occasional bursts of black humour, as the story progresses and becomes more tragic, it becomes more intensely dramatic.  Karimi's performance is brilliant and unshowy and the film left me slightly shellshocked at the end - the dramatic tension is ramped up and we are left with an ambiguous ending as to whether Sahar has succeeded or not - my heart was in my mouth as it cut to the credits.