The Old Bachelor (2024) takes its title from a 17th century British play but is set in contemporary Iran. It is also inspired by director Oktay Baraheni’s own coming-of-age during the Iranian Revolution. At its core, the film delivers a trenchant portrayal of a patriarchal family that includes two middle-aged half-brothers, Ali (Hamed Behdad) and Reza (Mohammad Valizadegan), intent on killing their negligent father, Gholam (Hassan Pourshirazi). All three men watch the recent divorcée, Rana (Leila Hatami), who moves into the flat above the father’s home—especially Ali, who quickly falls in love—and the film positions this apartment as an axis on which themes of masculinity, troubled family lineage, and the business of love are explored.
We meet Rana in a lamp shop. She has an elegant black outfit on and we learn that her ex-husband is no longer helping her with payments. “Maybe someone will feel sorry for me,” she says with a sweet, sly smile. Gholam, observing her from the back of the lamp shop, tracks her down and offers her a cheap place to stay while neglecting to mention the lease involves an unspoken agreement they get married. After Rana moves in, there is a scene where she notices all three men watching her from different rooms as she leaves the house. In scenes like this, Baraheni suggests that she has become a symbol for the men to project their longings onto: on the one hand, their love, and on the other, their desire to exhibit the same sophistication and access to the outside world she has.
Toward the beginning of the film, the recurrence of a light-filled stairwell Rana constantly uses is emphasized to separate her from the men living below. Later, Gholam passes a paper bag full of money up the stairs to her. She refuses it and the money ends up back downstairs—its up-and-down trajectory setting up the escalating conflict between the two regarding the question of her freedom. As Rana begins to spend time with Ali alone, and the father becomes more insistent on getting what he wants, it becomes clear what her landlord actually thinks of her. When she agrees to stage a night with the father for another bag of money, Gholam no longer allows her to refuse his proposal. Rana tells Ali that her freedom is temporarily tied to money, thinking she can “get rid of him somehow,” and the last scene we see her in—she is inside the father’s truck, attempting to still pass the purse of money back—the acts of violence she endures make the viewer wonder: must we see violence to understand the effects of patriarchy? In fact, Baraheni’s filmmaking throughout The Old Bachelor stresses that the attempt to visualize patriarchal violence toward women often reduces its severity.
The Old Bachelor screens this evening, January 29, at IFC as part of the “Iranian Film Festival.”
