LandStone
(Iran/Switzerland, 64 min.)
Dir. Faraz Fadaian
Prod. Faraz Fadaian, Elaheh Nobakht, Saeed Sheidi Tekmedash
Program: International Spectrum Competition (World premiere)
Faraz Fadaian’s documentary LandStone opens with an anonymous elderly man in rural Iran awakening in a hand-hewn cave in the middle of the night. Armed with only a lantern-style flashlight, a walking stick, and the blanket he slept under, the man makes his way back to his motorcycle to begin the long journey home along a desolate landscape.
Why is the man sleeping in a cave when he has a place with indoor plumbing to lay his head? What does his wife think about this ritual? These are just a handful of the questions that initially bounce around a viewer’s head, but Fadaian has no interest in answering them.
As one observes the nameless man go about his daily routine, it becomes clear that the “why?” is not important. LandStone is far more interested in the “how.” It observes a ritualistic practice one does to cling to a way of life that is no longer in vogue by modern standards. This conflict between old and new makes the documentary an absorbing work.
Each day, the man conducts a routine that he has clearly been doing for decades. He starts his morning with a piece of bread, one hard-boiled egg, and some nuts—a meal that is repeated so much that it practically becomes a clock in Fadaian’s film. He then takes his various medications, whose packaging fills a shoebox to the brim, before tending to his sheep and doing other manual labour around the home. In his quiet moments, he either tries his hand at playing a Ney, an end-blown flute, or moves rocks around his palm while quietly observing his flock.
The audience never hears the man utter a word, nor do they see his wife outside of her bedroom. Most of the sounds one hears is from the environment they inhabit. The rustling of the few remaining leaves on a barren tree and the chomping of sheep at a feeding trough provide the soundtrack of the man’s life.
Leaving the audience to assemble the puzzle pieces of the man’s life to this point, with only a few photos in the home serving as possible clues, the sense of curiosity further lures the viewer into the hypnotic rhythms of Fadaian’s vérité approach. By observing the repetitious nature of the man’s daily life, LandStone slowly evolves into a meditation on the passing nature of time and how the practices we hold dear eventually fade away.
The man may be traversing between two worlds as the motorcycle travels back and forth down a long solitary road, but the sense of isolation in both realms is palpable. It is evident that, at his age, he cannot live a full nomadic life. However, the conveniences of a life with running water and available medications do not seem to bring him more joy either. The happiest the audience ever sees him is when Fadaian, while incorporating moments of thermal vision, observes a lamb nibbling on his long hair.
While the moments of thermal vision offer a stark break from the monotony of everyday life, and even give the film a haunting feeling at times, Fadaian’s stunning black and white cinematography lingers in the mind most. Whether scanning a desolate landscape or slowly panning from the man peering through a window, inside a surprisingly cavernous building, to the rocks and dead animal within, one begins to see the disarming appeal the land has to the man.
Similar to the landscape it carefully observes, LandStone has its own beguiling impact on the viewer. The film that clearly won’t be everyone’s cup of tea, especially those seeking a more traditional approach, or at least a film where the protagonist provides verbal insight into their life, but there is something undeniably fascinating about the work. Fadaian confidently immerses the audience in the waters of the film, letting its poetic streams guide them through.
A mesmerizing film, LandStone offers a meditative look aging and the routines that eventually fade away no matter how hard we try to hold on to them.
