Going By

If you missed it at the Iranian Film Festival earlier this year, now's your chance to catch the impressive directorial debut of Iranian film critic Iraj Karimi, who stages most of his tale inside the moving cars of four people: an undertaker with a dark sense of humor, a coffin and a grieving relative in tow; a man with a terminally ill young son who loves poetry and doesn't know of his imminent fate; a country guy with one young son he pushes to be a scholar, and an older teen who aspires to be a film critic; and a recently widowed woman with her late husband's mistress. At times the riders cross paths, and by movie's end what began as occasionally tragic comedy has slowly and effectively become a grand metaphor for the journey of life. There are continuity errors that detract from the action, but overall Karimi seems to have made a deft career switch. After all, as one character notes, "You can't earn a living from sitting and swearing at movies!"