Notes on Tabiate Bijan (Still Life, 1974)

Ali Asgari

Although he might not be a well-known filmmaker in the canon of Iranian auteurs, Sohrab Shahid Saless remains one of the most influential, unique and idiosyncratic voices of Iranian cinema. Nowhere is this more evident than in his film Tabiate Bijan (Still Life, 1974). In the Pahlavi-era of glossy Iranian box-office spectacles, better known as film Farsi or Iranian Hollywood, Tabiate Bijan represented a new and radical approach to cinema. In its exhaustion of a classic narrative structure and by not opting for a fully resolute ending, he broke with the cinematic norm of the the early 1970s and lead film into new territory: Saless’s minimalist style, documentary approach and work with non-professional actors would later be adopted and developed in the films of Abbas Kiarostami. 

During the economic recession that Iran suffered in the early 1970s popular cinema offered people entertainment and escape. However, Saless’s uncompromising approach and depiction of the simple life of struggling lower class Iranians showed the flipside of a more complex and troubled society.  Daily routines observed in long takes with a cold color palette, diegetic sound only, and a particular, mechanical way of acting are some of the hallmarks of his unsentimental style—a style that comes to fruition in Tabiate Bijan. The film portrays the excruciatingly quotidian life of a male railway worker, who has no conception of himself outside his métier. However, it was the depiction of his wife and her struggles and the radical, feminist ideas of the film that caused controversy at the time of its premiere. Released during the oil crisis of 1973, Tabiate Bijan spoke to a generation of Iranian filmmakers who were critical of the aesthetics and politics of the Pahlavi-monarchy. The crisis became the beginning of an economic boom and rapid modernization that ended in what is known as the “anti-capitalistic” revolution of 1979. Sohrab Shahid Saless was one of the most astute observers of Iran at this specific historical moment. Along with his producer Sayyad, Saless was forced into exile. There was no tolerance for his clarity of mind either before or after the revolution. Sohrab Shahid Saless died in Chicago, Illinois in 1998.