Fifi Howls From Happiness | Fifi az khoshhali zooze mikeshad (2013)
Synopsis
Bahman Mohassess was a celebrated artist at the time of the Shah. Trained in Italy, he created sculptures and paintings in his homeland.
But audiences often took offence at the pronounced phalli on his mostly naked bronze figures and his work was regularly censored. All traces of him were lost after the revolution. It was said he destroyed his remaining paintings and disappeared.
Mitra Farahani, who began her career as a painter, finds Mohassess in a hotel in Rome. The old man is flattered by her interest in his life but also has very clear ideas about how his words and life should be illustrated.
His unshakeable humour is nevertheless infectious and his critical faculties fascinating. Almost incidentally, the topic moves towards art and homosexuality. Farahani wants to film Mohassess at work and discovers two brothers who commission a new piece from him.
Enlivened by the encounter with these two young Iranian collectors, the artist energetically discusses his grand plans and drives a hard bargain for his last work of art.
Cast: Bahman Mohassess
When Mitra Faharani finds in Rome the famous Iranian painter Bahman Mohassess, who had been relegated to oblivion by the post-revolutionary regime, she is unaware that she will be filming the last months of his life.
Yet, the film is full of joy. Although this homosexual artist went into exile in 1954 after Mossadegh’s overthrow, a Pasolini-like vitality characterises the man and his work.
Fifi Howls from Happiness, one of the few paintings he did not destroy but hung in his hotel room, sums up his mix of vivacity and despair.
“We built and we destroyed, leaving the world with nothing but a sad song”: this line by Marino Marini, which is forced on the filmmaker, is one of the many playful and sometimes explosive injunctions that punctuate their fragile, poignant relationship.
Mohassess treats the film in the making as a self-portrait that he can destroy as he chooses. When Faharani introduces him to two art
patrons that commission a painting from him, she is treading in Balzac’s footsteps since the undertaking has all the makings of The Unknown Masterpiece.
Like the rest of the voice-over commentary, this literary reference serves as a passage between the inherently familiar form of the filmed portrait and the staggeringly grim violence that brutally left it unfinished. (C. G.)
About this movie
Title: Fifi Howls From Happiness | Fifi az khoshhali zooze mikeshad (2013)
Directed by: Mitra Farahani
Date of birth: 27 January 1975, Tehran, Iran
Writing credits: Mitra Farahani
Music: Tara Kamangar
Year: 2013
Country: USA | Iran | France
Language: Farsi
Color: Color
Runtime: 96 min.