Del Shodegan
Del Shodegan
Director: Ali Hatami
Writer: Ali Hatami
Cast & details:
Stars: Faramarz Sedighi, Amin Tarokh, Akbar Abdi, Saeed Poursamimi, Hamid Jebelli, Leili Rashidi, Leila Hatami …….
Genre: Drama/ History/ Music/ Romance
Runtime: 91 minutes
Language: Persian with English and French subtitle
Premiere status: It was nominated in 2001 Three Continents Festival for “Best Film”
Del Shodegan in Persian was produced in Iran and part of it in France by Ali Hatami in 1992. The movie is mainly about some Iranian classical musicians in Ghajar era and their struggle to release their first Record which takes them on a journey to France.
Ali Hatami was an Iranian film director, screenwriter, art director, and costume designer. He totally focused in Iranian culture in all his movies and was famous as Hafez (a famous Iranian poet) of Iranian Cinema. He often worked as the art director and costume designer of his own films.
Del Shodegan is in celebration and praise of Iranian music. At the beginning of the film an intertitle is seen which says: “This film is dedicated to The Great Masters of Iranian Music in the millennium anniversary of Barbad”. The film music was composed by famous Iranian musicians such as Hussein Alizadeh as composer and Mohammad Reza Shajarian as singer.
The name of the movie in Farsi is “Del Shodegan” that means “The Love-Stricken”, to explain more, it means: a combination of mad love and affection and distress and healing.
Synopsis, (Warning, spoilers):
The story is about the time Ahmad Shah Ghajar is ruling in Iran (19th century), a French businessman tries to take some of the best Iranian musicians to Paris to record some of the oldest Iranian traditional songs and music. But as soon as they get to France the businessman leaves them by themselves. Agha Hossein Delnavaz sells his home to provide the money to finish the job and record the songs but they face a lot of difficulties to finish the project and get back to Iran.
The director is trying to express the idea that the artists themselves should try to conserve their own culture and there will be no help for them except their own efforts. As we see in the movie they start an action to play a role in the history and art of the country and keep it safe for the next generations, and that is what gives them a value.
We will see in the movie that the Iranian artists, by traveling to Europe, try to use the western technology to record the art that have been learned from their ancestors and cooperate with the other people to maintain their belongings. Although they are aware of the difficulties of this road but they accept the challenges and step into this rough road only for the love of art and culture of their country.
Analysis:
A valuable story of the Persian musicians efforts, a history of what has happened so far to keep the culture alive. What have been through all the artists of this country to conserve the sprite of their art .
You can listen to the smooth voice of “Mohammad Reza Shajarian” who sings all the tracks of the movie with his unforgettable techniques. He is always considered as the glory of Persian traditional music and an influential artist in Iran.
And the music of the movie is composed by Hossein Alizadeh, one of the masters of traditional musical instruments who has composed so many well-known pieces of art and also plays “Tar” in most of the concerts.
By watching this movie you can have some ideas of the contemporary history of Persia and and it also helps you to have an insight of literature and people’s values over the past centuries.