Product Details

• Actors: Taraneh Alidoosti, Matin Heydar-nia, Sahar Dolatshahi, Hamid Farrokhnezhad, Hedye Tehrani
• Directors: Asghar Farhadi
• Format: Color, DVD, Full Screen, NTSC, Subtitled
• Language: Farsi
• Subtitles: English
• Region: Region 1 (U.S. and Canada only. Read more about DVD formats.)
  
• Aspect Ratio: 1.33:1
• Number of discs: 1
• Rating: Unrated
• Studio: FACETS
• DVD Release Date: April 22, 2008
• Run Time: 104 minutes
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• ASIN: B0013B34X0
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #89,650 in Movies & TV (See Bestsellers in Movies & TV)

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Editorial Reviews

Review
Few Iranian films have tried to realistically depict both the urban middle and lower classes, and fewer still with the complexity of story telling and depth of characterization in Asghar Farhadi's impressive third feature, Fireworks Wednesday Co-scripted by Farhadi with director Mani Haghighi (Men at Work), this beautifully paced drama about marital infidelity, seen through the eyes of a young housemaid about to get married, is psychologically intricate and dramatically engrossing. It could prove a break-through film for Farhadi, whose Dance in the Dust and Beautiful City have prepared the way to international arthouse auds.
As this sophisticated work demonstrates, Iranian cinema has matured into far different genres than the quasi-documentaries about children and movie-making for which it is widely known. Though not overtly concerned with social issues, Fireworks Wednesday breathes the class gap in Iranian society into almost every upstairs/downstairs scene, with an unexpected ending that reinforces the divide.

Title refers to the Iranian New Year's holiday, Chahar Shanbeh Suri, when tradition calls for people to hide behind walls and listen to passing conversations that are supposed to reveal whether their wishes will come true. The film, set on the previous day, is less about wishing than spying.

While middle-class families prepare to leave for the holidays, for the working class it's business as usual. Rouhi (Taraneh Alidoosti, the young star of I'm Taraneh) gets a ride on her fiance's motorbike to work as a temp maid.

The moment she sets foot in the spacious modern apartment of Morteza (Hamid Farrokhnezhad) and his wife Mojdeh (Hadieh Tehrani), she finds herself swept up into a maelstrom of chaos and anger. The place is upside down, and Morteza has a bandaged hand from breaking a window the night before in an argument with his wife. Mojdeh is sure he's having an affair with the divorced beautician next door, Mrs. Simi (Pantea Bahram), and spends a lot of time in the bathroom with her ear pressed against the wall, trying to overhear something incriminating.

She sends Rouhi over to have her eyebrows plucked and spy for her.

Just when the story seems settled, however, the surprises begin. Morteza offers to drive Rouhi home, but first he must take his young son to watch fireworks in a park. At this point, the script pulls a major twist out of its hat, deepening the drama and the oddly intertwined relationship between the maid and her employers.

Farhadi, who has written and directed numerous stage plays, pulls edgy, morally nuanced perfs out of Tehrani (one of Iran's biggest film stars) as the self-centered, neurotic wife, and Farrokhnezhad as her fist-happy mate. Both cove a repressed violence that threatens everyone around them.

Humble but dignified, Alidoosti, who seems to develop with each new film, offers a sane counterpoint to this family out of hell. Bahram delivers an equally complex perf as the other woman.

The quality of the production is evident in Hossein Jafarian's fluid cinematography and Hayedeh Safyari's nervous editing. The final scenes are a tour de force in which the bonfire-strewn streets fill with merrymakers and the exploding fireworks look as dangerous as a war, an apt metaphor for the everyday violence in the characters' lives. --Variety

Product Description
All of Tehran is preparing to celebrate the traditional New Year with the festival of fire (Fireworks Wednesday), which falls on the last Tuesday night before the official New Year begins. On this auspicious evening, a young woman named Rouhi is employed by a young couple to clean their house. Sweet and naive, Rouhi is engaged to be married, but her innocence is shattered when she finds her employers household in crisis over accusations of infidelity.
Fireworks Wednesday delves into the untidy lives of contemporary Iranians to reveal the complicated relationships of its three-dimensional characters, beautifully realized by these seasoned actors. Exploring the social hierarchies of Iranian society, this film gives us a rare glimpse into the private lives of a people often misunderstood by the outside world. Fireworks Wednesday reaches beyond the political rhetoric of today's headlines to show us a society of people who must contend with problems not unlike our own.
Los Palmas Film Festival, Golden Lady Harimaguada for Best Film
Chicago International Film Festival, Gold Hugo for Best Film
Fajr Film Festival, Crystal Simorghs for Best Director, Best Actress, and Best Editing
Locarno International Film Festival, Junior Jury Award
Los Angeles Film Festival, Official Selection
Tribeca Film Festival, Official Selection

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A young Iranian woman is about to be married ... an incendiary marriage is about to explode, March 14, 2008

By	Nathan Andersen "film lover, philosophy profe... (Florida) - See all my reviews (TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

Rouhi is engaged and very much in love, and goes to work as a maid in the house of a couple on the verge of a meltdown. The wife is a nervous and suspicious wreck, and the messy house and broken window confirm that this is not a scene of domestic tranquility. Throughout the day, Rouhi becomes increasingly involved in the lives of the wife, her husband and their child, and the woman who the wife suspects of being her husband's mistress. She takes sides and later regrets it; she is used as a pawn in an elaborate contest between the husband and wife. Along the way she must begin to wonder about her own dreams of a happy ever after.

The film takes place on the Wednesday prior to the Iranian New Year, when according to tradition there is a fireworks celebration in the streets. One of the most engaging and frightening scenes occurs as the husband drives Rouhi home through streets ablaze and abuzz with explosions, rockets, bonfires. The sounds, lights and explosions that surround them as they speed through the streets, avoiding flames, mirrors the volatility of the marriage -- and accelerates the tension within the car, given the husband's suspicion that Rouhi may have betrayed him to his wife.

Fireworks Wednesday is an honest and subtle and provocative film that takes a very simple and utterly believable story and lets a set of complicated issues weave in and through it effortlessly. A very intriguing portrait of life in Tehran, with exceptionally delicate and convincing performances, and masterful direction that is able to take a scene from everyday life and render it extremely interesting and unsettling and suspenseful.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A Rare Window into the Daily Lives of Families Far Away, May 29, 2008

By	David Crumm "Editor of www.ReadTheSpirit.com" (Canton, Michigan) - See all my reviews (TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

"Fireworks Wednesday" is a fascinating glimpse into the lives of men and women living in contemporary Iran. It's fiction, but it's a compelling and honest contemporary story of an idealistic young woman from a working-class background who is on the verge of getting married -- and takes on a job as a cleaning woman for an up-scale family to make some extra money.

She shows up in the midst of disaster. The husband seems to be a brute, there's broken glass strewn across the floor and the man's wife shows up soon -- full of upper-class biases and in the midst of an emotional crisis over her husband's behavior. It's not entirely clear, at first, what has happened in the household -- but watching this drama is an amazing window in the lives of everyday Iranian families.

For Americans, one of the enormous challenges in our world today is seeing the humanity in distant nations -- especially nations like Iran with which our nation's leaders seem to be crossing swords. Spending a couple of hours with this Iranian melodrama puts sympathetic human faces on people half a world away. And that's an important thing in times of global tension.

This is well-written drama with sophisticated characters and a plot that keeps us guessing along the way -- whether we see ourselves in the roles of the older upper-class couple struggling to come to terms with an explosive marriage or we see the world through the eyes of the idealistic young woman about to get married.

4.0 out of 5 stars powerful and mesmerizing story of gender and class conflict, January 11, 2009

By	Elish (NY) - See all my reviews

The other reviewers have done an excellent job of presenting this film. It's a powerful and mesmerizing story of gender and class conflict with a pace that never lets up. I had intended to watch part of it before going to sleep but I couldn't tear myself away.