Chess of the Wind. 1976. Iran. Written and directed by Mohammad Reza Aslani. With Fakhri Khorvash, Shohreh Aghdashloo, Shahram Golchin, Mohamad Ali Keshavarz. Digital restoration courtesy Janus Films, restored by The Film Foundation’s World Cinema Project and Cineteca di Bologna at L’Image Retrouvée laboratory (Paris) in collaboration with Mohammad Reza Aslani and Gita Aslani Shahrestani. Restoration funding provided by the Hobson/Lucas Family Foundation. In Persian; English subtitles. 100 min.
One of the major cinematic rediscoveries of the past decade, Chess of the Wind was way ahead of its time: its single screening at the Tehran International Film Festival in 1976 earned Aslani the scorn of critics and the indifference of audiences more enthralled by popular genre fare. The film’s Gothic style draws on German Expressionism and the French avant-garde, as well as on the paintings of Georges de La Tour, Johannes Vermeer, and Iranian miniature art. Following the Islamic Revolution, the film was banned for its offenses against religious authority and its homoerotic overtones. Only now, thanks to the fortuitous unearthing of the film’s negative at a flea market and its subsequent restoration in 2022, can Aslani receive his due recognition as a brilliant storyteller through exquisitely composed images and sounds.