Cinema
Night of the Hunchback
شب قوزی
Farrokh Ghaffari · 1965
Synopsis
Asghar, the hunchback of a troupe of travelling actors, swallows a mouthful the wrong way at the dinner that follows the show and chokes to death. His companions, fearing they will have to explain themselves, get rid of the body, and the dead man passes from hand to hand during the night: a bride's father, a hairdresser and his assistant, and others besides each try in turn to dispose of him, while Tehran's high society dances to tunes by Ray Charles.
Context
Adapted from the tale of the hunchback in the Thousand and One Nights, the film was first meant to be set in the time of the caliph Harun al-Rashid; the censors had the plot moved to contemporary Tehran. Ghaffari wrote it with Jalal Moghadam, produced it and plays the barber's assistant in it, alongside Mohammad-Ali Keshavarz, for whom it was a first film, and Pari Saberi; in passing, he paid homage in it to Hitchcock's The Trouble with Harry. Released in Tehran in February 1965, it was a commercial failure, but the festivals of Cannes, Karlovy Vary and Brussels took notice of it, and Georges Sadoul praised it.
Who it is for
A film in Persian, in black and white, of about an hour and a half. It is as well to know that the farce in it is black and that the whole action takes place in a single night.
Prizes and reception
Regarded as one of the founding films of Iranian auteur cinema and as a forerunner of the country's New Wave.