This is the only still I could find of Ebrahim Golestan's 1965 film The Brick and The Mirror, and just might be the singular one available. This is a film of supreme realism and heart, and were it available for wider release it might prove to be one of the world's top movies of all-time. It follows an Iranian taxi driver around the city after he discovers a crying baby left in the back of his cab. Unable to find the baby's mother in a shadowy, almost abstractly dark and abandoned village on the outside of town, the cabbie takes in the bundled baby. He visits a smoky supper club, replete with a brazen cabaret singer, and a philosophy-spewing table of men that's reminiscent of something Godard. (As it turns out, I recently popped in my VHS of Breathless and instantly thought of Golestan's film.) The taxi driver gets help from a female friend, a waitress who finds this as the perfect opportunity to construct a family of her own. The police are reluctant to claim the baby so it's turned over to an orphanage--perhaps the biggest regret of this would-be mother and father's relationship, which fades away with the dusky night. One of the most outstanding scenes ever seen on film takes place inside the orphanage before the film concludes, with long, curious shots of the nursery's babies bouncing and crying; subtly noticing their own performance for the quiet camera. This was the first screening in 35 years, so if it comes to town it is urgent that you, film fans, see it immediately.
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