UMBRA (Tariki) Review
The word ‘umbra’, in a literary sense, refers to shadows and darkness. This word is not just fitting to what we see in this film, but also to the ambiguity that darkness represents. Umbra (Tariki), directed by Saeed Jafarian and written by Jafarian and Fatemeh Abdoli, is a short film about a young lady, just a few minutes after midnight, who realizes that her partner disappeared after they had sex. She goes out worried to seek her partner in the darkness of the streets of Tehran, Iran. Much of the film’s stylistic choices are what create an uneasy, eerie feeling, far before the young lady even runs into the strange man she mistook for her boyfriend. Jafarian does an excellent job of paying attention to the small details of direction to quickly establish this uncomfortable atmosphere.
In any genre of film or television, the most uncomfortable scenes usually are those that are unaccompanied by any bit of sound. Horrors and thrillers have perfected this and Jafarian applies that to this film. There is absolutely no music in the film, and this oftentimes can make a film uncomfortable, but when a director chooses to make sure there is barely any exterior noises as well? That’s when it’s downright creepy. Jafarian doesn’t even have to do anything extra for him to secure silence from the surroundings because this film is shot after midnight. The young lady’s home is empty, her neighborhood is quiet, and the streets are empty. Even outside noises you may hear, like bugs or cars in the distant, are all muffled because the wind blows strongly in the background. The only noise we hear is the young lady when she speaks, her cell phone ringing, and the strange man she speaks with.
Along with the exterior noises of this film being natural and nothing from Jafarian’s part, the entire sense of danger in the atmosphere is achieved through the cinematography of Masud Amini Tirani. Tirani and Jafarian don’t shoot with harsh or dimmed lenses to enhance the darkness of the scenes. Inside, she barely has any lights on and outside, the only lights that luminate her face are the streetlights. The sense of a young woman, walking alone past midnight, looking for her boyfriend who left her unexpectedly, is enough to increase the viewer’s apprehension. Jafarian knew this and him and Tirani focused on how they used the camera to show how she felt unsafe in the night. The camera is mostly shot from eye-level. It’s steady and its pace matches the pace of the young woman; when she walks slowly, the camera moves slowly and when she runs, it runs with her. An incredible choice that Jafarian makes in this film is to have two primary framing positions; one directly in front of the young woman, and the other directly behind her. The shots behind her are of the camera following her and allow the viewer to see what she sees. The shots where the camera is in front of her are much scarier because we see when the strange man follows her after she runs away from him. Both are brilliant.
There are only two actors in this film, the young woman (Mahsa Alafar) and the strange man (Banipal Shoomoon). Both Alafar and Shoomoon are great in their roles. Alafar, seemingly scared, never backs down from Shoomoon’s strange questions and statements. Shoomoon does an excellent job of staying aloof and partially imposing.
Umbra was very successful, being screened at over 50 of the world’s most prestigious film festivals including Cannes, AFI and Toronto. Jafarian’s film is extremely well made, ambiguous in topic and an unexpectedly thrilling film.
