'My Favorite Dessert': Desire and dark humor under the slab of the ayatollahs' regime

DirectorsMaryam Moghadam andBehtash Sanaeeh ( The Forgiveness , 2020) semi-clandestinely filmed their new film, My Favorite Dessert , a tender and dark tragicomedy that premiered at the last Berlinale without the presence of its two creators, sentenced in their country to 14 months in prison, a fine of 14,000 dollars and five years of disqualification from film.

My Favorite Dessert is a kind of late-life romantic comedy that darkens along the way until it ends up as a desolate and claustrophobic political film. It's the story of a 70-year-old widow living in Tehran who, one day, fed up with her loneliness, decides to go out into the street in search of companionship and becomes a sad mirror of a mortuary country. This co-production between Iran, Sweden, and Germany is unusual in its subject matter, even more so under the regime of the ayatollahs : after 30 years of widowhood, the protagonist refuses to give up enjoying her body and her desires. So, in a cheerful and natural way, she searches for a remedy before it's too late.

The fantastic performances of the wonderful actress Lili Farhadpour and actor Esmaeel Mehrabi are at the center of a film whose lighthearted tone mutates in its final stretch under the weight of a relentless existential burden. The main setting is the widow's house, a well-cared-for and pampered home, but one that the camera shows us as lifeless, empty. Phone calls from a daughter who lives far away, television, and the occasional dinner with her old friends turn the routine of the protagonist, Mahin, into a space where others are a mirage. The sense of loneliness conveyed by the film in its small details is overwhelming, as is the daily harassment of the character, a prison life.

One of the main accusations against the directors of My Favorite Dessert is that the protagonist appears without a hijab . Another is that she is shown dancing and drinking with a man she is not married to. Furthermore, the film shows how the morality police in her country arrest a group of young women for wearing their veils incorrectly . In this sequence, the brave Mahin is not afraid to stand up to authority.

But the most transgressive aspect of Moghadam and Sanaeeha's film is how they subtly and humorously portray the protagonist's desire and how it connects with the taxi driver played by Esmaeel Mehrabi. The one-on-one between the two is a delight. A moment of light that illuminates a sinister, inescapable place.