There was a moment in this extraordinary two-hour plus Iranian single-take mind-bender Fish & Cat when I was hooked, and I stayed so throughout the remainder. This is a conceptual experiment that requires a great deal of patience and won’t be everyone’s cup of tea. It is a playful ‘horror’ film - there is tension and unease, but nay a genre convention in sight - that will surely leave audiences scratching their heads. A group of young people meet at a lake, set up their camp and prepare for a kite festival, and over the course of the shot, helmed by the DP of A Separation, we follow these individuals as they cross paths with one another, and two chefs from a nearby dodgy-looking restaurant. As the film does strange things we are challenged to reflect on everything we have seen and simultaneously think ahead, it becomes an increasingly complex entanglement of strands that make for a giddily exciting trip.

این مقاله‌ تحلیلی را درباره تمارض نوشته‌ام و در مجله ۲۴، شماره آبان ۱۳۹۳چاپ شده است

mvahdani.com/2016/05/02/%D9%85%D8%A7%D9%87%DB%8C-%D9%88-%DA%AF%D8%B1%D8%A8%D9%87/

Καταρχήν: ξεχάστε όλα όσα ξέρετε για το ιρανικό σινεμά. Το "Fish & Cat" θα μπορούσε να μιλάει οποιαδήποτε χώρα και να είναι το ίδιο εξαιρετικό. Γυρισμένο με μία μόνο λήψη 134 λεπτών και φωτογραφημένο εξαιρετικά γύρω από μία λίμνη και το γειτονικό δάσος, το φιλμ είναι η μεγαλύτερη έκπληξη των ταινιών της φετινής Mostra.

Το περίεργο είναι ότι παρά το γεγονός ότι η ταινία αποτελείται από μία μόνο λήψη, αυτό δεν σημαίνει ότι είναι γυρισμένη σε real time. Κάνει πισωγυρίσματα στο χρόνο, προσφέρει παράλληλες οπτικές και εντυπωσιάζει με την σκηνοθετική του προσέγγιση! Θα μπορούσε να είναι κάλλιστα διαγωνιστικό, ελπίζω να πάρει την φόρα που αξίζει στα επόμενα φεστιβάλ και να καταφέρει να γίνει γνωστό γιατί, πέρα από την καινοτομία του, παρουσιάζει και μια ιστορία που πλησιάζει τα όρια του θρίλερ, με μικρές δόσης ειρωνείας. Εξαιρετικό!

NZIFF2014 #29, Academy.
Mesmerising; I found the repetition very clever, even if it seemed slow & drab at times. I found I was always looking for that next overlap. Starting with the juiciest characters was a great way to hook me in, then dotting oddness amongst the banal made it feel so exciting. ONE TAKE?!?

Not only one shot with uncertain timing, but really feels atemporal. You're there, in the moment, with these characters each of whom may or may or may not be important, but all of whom have stories to tell, and the passage of time seems to cease completely. The scene moves but references repeat, interrelations are elaborated to teased but never fully explicated. You're there, in the moment, etc.

Fish and Cat reaches an impressive feat by its single take nature. The timing and choreography is so precise yet not flashy. Like theater, you move from scene to scene as you are trapped in a never ending time loop. An art house Time Crimes, there’s genre elements present but it’s mostly conversations in the woods ranging from mundane to unsettling. You are immersed in the relationship that grow as the film branches in every direction. Impressive and downright fascinating, it’s a shame that this didn’t get a theatrical release in the states.

من اول «هجوم» از شهرام مکری رو دیده بودم و توقع بیشتری از این بزرگوار داشتم که به نظرم خوب بود.
اگر اسم ماهی و گربه رو فیلم بذاریم که به نظرم اصلا فیلم نیست می‌شه به یه سری نکات اشاره کرد.
اینکه بازی بازیگرای فیلم به شدت مصنوعیه یعنی حتی سیگار کشیدنشون بده چه برسه به بقیه موارد که یه جاهایی دیگه خنده دار می‌شه. همین باعث شده با یه سری آدم مواجه باشیم که نه شخصیتن نه تیپ و هیچگونه حسی ندارن و هیچگونه نمی‌شه ارتباط برقرار کرد.
وان شات بودن این فیلم اصلا مناسب نیست و باعث حوصله سربر شدن فیلم می‌شه. دوربین روی دستش بیشتر از هرچیزی بده و کلافه می‌کنه جوری که از یه جایی به بعد دوست داری به فیلمبردار بگی تو رو خدا آروم بگیر!

A film all shot in one take is sure to impress. The abstract timeline allows for the camera to be passed between characters and a real innovative piece of work from ourside of the West (brilliant). However, fish & cat should not under any circumstance by categrosied as a drama slasher! This meant my expectations were not even close to being met. I can appreciate what this has provided cinema with but I did not enjoy this film and found it too be far too narratively slow.

Again, thank you to Shahram Mokri as I do believe this is so important too academically study and understand. But, if you fall asleep at any time, it's likely you'll wake up to the same scene 20 minutes later and you'll probably be very scared that you're stuck in some time loop in an alternate world. Sorry.

Not every day that those highbrows at the Austin Film Society screen a purported slasher for their Essential Cinema series, so I had to go for that reason alone. This isn't really a slasher, obviously, but it does use the tropes of the genre to build a kind of tension and humor out of its otherwise meandering narrative. Oh, also, it's one of those one-take movies, which doesn't really do it any favors in the pacing department. Most striking sequence is the final one, in which what appears to be our first victim of the movie narrates her own death in voice over, concluding just as the camera turns away. I fully expect to see this technique in the next Friday the 13th movie.

3.2

خوب اما خسته کننده..

Good but boring..

This is one of the most technically impressive things that I have ever witnessed: a single-take film that somehow keeps replaying elements in a circular fashion; the same events from different perspectives. Not only this, but the temporal shifting and lack of linearity makes it so events are not necessarily shown chronologically.

With that said, there was something about the film – whether that be its muted colour scheme, language barrier, framing, or pacing – but there were times where I unfortunately found it hard to be completely engaged.

pushes the bounds of a single take film, looping and intersecting, in favor of a linear timeline. establishing the perspective of its characters and blending various genres (e.g. supernatural, romance, etc.) thru this. i just wish alot of the plot had conclusive ends.

فیلم یک تمرین پلان سکانس تحسین برانگیز است با زمان بندی عالی و حفظ راکوردهای فوق‌العاده!
همین و بس ! هیچ چیزی بیش از این نیست ، فیلم در ساختن کوچکترین حسی ناتوان است ، نه قصه دارد و نه مهمتر از آن شخصیت !
مشخصا دو دسته از افراد را تحت تاثیر قرار میدهد :
اول آنهایی که غرق در تکنیک سینمایی هستند و مبهوت این بخش از سینما.
دوم آنهایی که به تازگی فیلم دیدن بصورت جدی را آغاز کرده اند که آنها هم صرفا درگیر همان زمانبندی و سخت بودن پروسه اجرایی فیلم میشوند.

no me queda más remedio que admirar el hecho de rodar un plano secuencia de dos horas y cuarto con el único propósito aparente de troliar al espectador. No solo es una peli en un solo plano que se las apaña para mostrar varias acciones simultáneas en paralelo en diferentes puntos de la geografía, sino que parece cambiar de género en cada escena: es a ratos una peli de miedo, de asesinos en serie, un drama romántico, una comedia absurda, una historia de fantasmas y un puzzle-bucle temporal escheriano, muchas veces una combinación de varias. Al principio no estaba muy convencido porque parece todo un poco rudimentario y durante media hora o así no parece jugar muchas cartas, pero luego hay un momento en la que representan un déja vu que... No tengo muy claro qué cojones he visto pero a favor. Buena banda sonora también.

An experimental single take Iranian drama that flirts with slasher movie motifs but amounts to more than just an unorthodox riff on the horror sub-genre. I enjoyed the rural kite festival setting and commitment to character dynamics indicative of some of the best Iranian cinema.

اتفاقی تازه و دلنشین در سینمای ایران.
منتها مثل هر فیلم تکنیکالی این فیلم هم داستان قدرتمندی نداشت اما با بازی های خوب و شخصیت پردازی درست و تکنیک فیلمبرداری جذابی که داشت ضعف فیلمنامه کمتر به چشم میومد. و در کل دوست داشتنی بود برای من.

Not only one shot with uncertain timing, but really feels atemporal. You're there, in the moment, with these characters each of whom may or may or may not be important, but all of whom have stories to tell, and the passage of time seems to cease completely. The scene moves but references repeat, interrelations are elaborated to teased but never fully explicated. You're there, in the moment, etc.