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33 out of 34 people found the following comment useful :-
Bravely depicts the powerlessness of the individual, 3 January 2005
9/10
Author: Howard Schumann from Vancouver, B.C.

Winner of the Jury Award at the 2003 Cannes Film Festival but sadly banned in Iran, Jafar Panahi's Crimson Gold shows the growing chasm in Iran between rich and poor and the psychological effects of living under a regime based on fundamentalist religion. Written by famous Iranian director Abbas Kiarostami, it is based on a newspaper account of a similar incident that took place several years ago in Tehran. The film opens inside a jewelry store where a robbery is taking place. As a crowd gathers, the robber is trapped when the security system is released and the bars close over the front door. Flashbacks then show the events that led up to the crime and the film speculates as to what might have led to this act of desperation.

Hussein (Hossain Emadeddin), an alienated heavy set man who hides his emotions, is a pizza deliveryman in Tehran who takes cortisone shots to relieve the pain of injuries sustained in the Iran-Iraq War. He is engaged to be married to his friend Ali's (Kamyar Sheissi) sister but they communicate little. Ali is a thief who snatches women's purses but is an amateur bungler who rarely scores a big take. On examining the contents of a purse with Hussein at a restaurant, they discover the receipt for an expensive necklace and their fascination leads them to visit the jewelry store where it was purchased. When the owner refuses to let them in the store because of their dress, resentment boils.

Another incident reinforces this hurt. Hussein is forced by security police to wait outside a building as they arrest people attending a party for allegedly violating the social code of the regime that prohibits men and women from dancing together. Though he good-naturedly hands out pizzas to the police and the detainees waiting outside the building, he is upset at the manner in which he is treated. A bizarre final sequence raises Hussein's anger to the breaking point. He delivers a pizza to a lavish penthouse apartment where he is invited in by the wealthy tenant (Pourang Nakaheal), a young man who recently returned to Iran after staying with his parents in the U.S. The man, who appears to be lonely, talks incessantly, complaining about the "city of lunatics" he has returned to. As the young man chats on the cell phone, Hussein wanders through the house amazed at its affluence. He finds a rooftop swimming pool and jumps in fully clothed, then sits on the roof simply gazing at the city below. Fuming inwardly, the very next day he walks into the jewelry store with a loaded gun.

Crimson Gold bravely depicts the powerlessness of the individual in an authoritarian society, yet Hussein's emotional repressiveness and the telegraphing of the final outcome dilutes the film's tension, almost to the point of lethargy. To his credit, Panahi makes a strong statement but does not wallow in polemics, making it clear that the crime results from a combination of both social and psychological factors. Hussein is not an ordinary individual beaten down by the system but a walking time bomb, a man physically and mentally damaged by the war, uncommunicative, and humiliated by each slight, no matter how minor. Like Hussein, Panahi knows something about the feeling of being trapped and humiliated and his experience lends immediacy to the film. In 2001, the director was detained, then chained to a bench for ten hours because he refused to be fingerprinted and photographed by US authorities at JFK airport, a reminder that assaults upon human dignity are not limited to a single country.

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21 out of 25 people found the following comment useful :-
Crimson Gold, 7 October 2004
10/10
Author: Ivane from tbilisi

"He motorbikes every evening to neighborhoods he will never live in, for a closer look at what goes on behind closed doors. But one Night, Hussain tastes the luxurious life, before his deep feelings of humiliation push him over the edge."

It's sad to see reviews - saying this is a boring movie... This movie is so good, that I totally forgot about WATCH or even Time. Hussain is one of the most interesting characters I have ever seen... and with no doubt Jafar Panahi with his 'The Circle' and 'Crimson Gold' one of the most talented directors of our time...

thx for this movie... I really enjoyed watching it on Tbilisi International Film Festival (just today)and I hope the movie gets the main prize...

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17 out of 21 people found the following comment useful :-
Excellent recent chapter in Iranian film, 5 November 2004
Author: estephan from Washington DC

This is a bit of a dream team coming together for a recent iranian film: Kiarostami writes and Panahi directs. And the film is an appropriate hybrid. It has the sloow, thoughtful, gritty realistic, real-life dialogue laden, meandering-but-focused story that Kiarostami makes, along with the focus on social injustice that Panahi had in the Circle.

It's on the top ten for Iranian film which means definitely get it. Great film. Great photography. Lots of teheran and iranian morality police -- cool. If you can't stand movies that don't have a clear Hollywood plot -- if you don't like art house movies -- if you get bored or tired in slow movies -- don't rent it.

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12 out of 15 people found the following comment useful :-
One of the best films of the year, 13 January 2005
Author: hyegodfather818 from Los Angeles

Crimson Gold, one of the best films of the year, is absolutely stunning from start to finish. It's gritty and captures the essence of the social struggles in Iran while consistently delivering messages on the struggles we all face in life regarding love and relationships. It's a humanistic film that is extremely subtle, which turned off several viewers (as does Taxi Driver, one of my all-time favorites). Jafar Panahi's slow pacing doesn't allow the film to go into incoherent territory, but again, some viewers may be turned off by this. The pacing is really what allows the messages to set in and provoke the viewers thoughts. It's worth every second of your time, don't miss this gem.

9/10

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9 out of 10 people found the following comment useful :-
a clever director,a pizza delivery,a jewellery gallery,a shocked man ,a good movie, 13 July 2005
10/10
Author: lonelymountain from Tehran, Iran

Jafar Panahi is one of the best directors of Iran,his works are upon the best movies of the world,showing the social problems of Iran,after wards Sohrab Shahid Sales is the best choice for watching movies,Crimson gold is the story of Hossein a soldier in Iran-Iraq war who got toxicated by chemical bombs is a mugger,and he delivers pizzas when doing his job he confronts completely different situations which his within is dazzled by them,he saw his friend which he wad a soldier too ,in a luxurious house,Hossein delivered pizza to his house and the price was 20.5 $,he paid him 21 bucks instead an d told him ,keep the tip,he saw the pain if society,he saw the pain within,every time he went to the jewellery's galleries he confronted with shocking prices, this movie is unrealizable for foreigners because they don't know the picture of our society and it's levels, first our society had three levels but the second level is vanishing and there will be only the level that lives in poverty ,and the level that is vomiting money, this movie is not the best movie,it's good but it has some boring scenes,but the direction,camera angles are good, this movie has somethings hided behind the scenes,you should know Iran to see this movie by the way i give it 7.2 out of 10

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11 out of 15 people found the following comment useful :-
wonderfully patient movie that bludgeons you with its purpose, 4 August 2004
10/10
Author: thelordgabe from Ohio

One of the absolutely most beautiful movies i have seen in a long time... This movie moves at the speed of life - or that of the main character in the film. Hussein reminds me of Forrest Whitaker in Ghost Dog... aside from the obvious physical similarities they are both men of integrity... they are both reliable purveyors of their intended perspective.

Anyway, this movie does not suffer from gratuitous slowness... Hussein's pace is juxtaposed with that of everyone/everything else in the movie... Saying that this movie is weak because it is too slow is like saying that you hate women because their voices are shrill... GET OVER IT! THIS MOVIE *SHOULD* BE PAINFUL TO WATCH!!! If how and to what degree a movie affects you is a criteria for how "good" it is, then this movie is the lovechild of Barry Bonds and the Pope... ...dig the shot when Hussein enters onto the freeway/gridlock (towards the beginning of the film)...

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7 out of 8 people found the following comment useful :-
What movies are supposed to be like!, 31 May 2005
10/10
Author: houman1983 from United States

It is regrettable that some comments have described the movie as boring and tedious. In the west, we have been raised with a version of cinema presented by Hollywood that provides quick indulgence and satisfaction; well not only cinema, a lot others as well. Movies that lack this characteristic, being ironically closer to reality and providing an insight into the world we live in, are judged as "weak," and "boring." Allegorical cinema is the strongest cinema no question, and Iranian cinema has been an efflux of such examples during the past decade; "Crimson Gold" is a perfect example.

It might come out as strange, but for a change, a movie has been able to capture the real life, the real social struggles of the society; and this doesn't just pertain to the Iranian society, but the description is one of ecumenical. The pace matches the pace of real life, as one other commentator put it so eloquently, it SHOULD be slow, and it SHOULD be agonizing to watch it, simply because that's what the movie is trying to portray, and that's how real life is experienced. The slow pace of the movie, following every move of the main character, makes the movie even more poignant. One can put self in Hussain's shoes, and feel the pain and humiliation he feels when he walks into the Jewlery store, case in point.

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7 out of 9 people found the following comment useful :-
Just another Iranian movie, 18 July 2006
10/10
Author: TheVillageCharlatan from Losa Angelosa

This is just another Iranian movie...It's like what I read about Florence in the Lonely Planet guidebook..that it astonishes you, and then slowly you come to terms with it and its beauty and you take it for granted that everything in Florence is grand and excellent. The same could be said for many of the Iranian movies, made by giants such as Kiorastami, Makhmalbaf and Panahi. This is just another of those movies...movies that cannot go wrong! The story is interesting, acting is natural and the dialogue is, to a large extent, minimum.

What I like most about Iranian movies is that they are never preachy and they do not make fuss about anything, but simply, subtly drive their point(s) home....just like how we act in real life.

People who did not like this movie, should watch the Arnold or Chuck Norris movies during the weekends in Fox 11 TV channel.

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4 out of 4 people found the following comment useful :-
Takes its time, but never boring, 28 June 2006
8/10
Author: cwx from Riverside, California

It's positively amazing what you can sometimes get with non-professional actors, basically playing themselves, especially compared to the many times that real actors flub things entirely. This film follows the sad trajectory of a disaffected pizza delivery driver in Tehran, but while his journey is rooted in reality and presented, aside from the cuts from one scene to another, in something much like real time including all the boring waiting periods (and without the comforting style of similar scenes in Chinatown), the story itself is almost fantastical, probably in part because the people Hussein meets are, to no small degree, more symbolic than anything. The story is heartbreaking and the visuals held my interest without being flashy in the least. Most interestingly, director Jafar Panahi provides us with a removed, rational view of modern Iranian society even as he shows his considerable skill in unobtrusively guiding us along with one man's unfortunate journey.

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4 out of 4 people found the following comment useful :-
Life is tough. It actually kills you!, 28 February 2006
8/10
Author: Behzad from Vancouver

Written by the most prominent figure in Iranian social realist cinema, Talaye Sorkh is very much suggestive of some social realities in contemporary Iran. Following an underclass pizza-delivery man for a day or two of his life, Panahi's camera pictures a story that speaks only not for Hussein, but also for many of his real-life fellow citizens in Tehran. Although the film appears to be highly critical of the current social gap between the rich and the poor, Talaye Sorkh is more about alienation and marginalization. Hussein is a war veteran who is devastated by the contradictions of the values he fought for in the Iran-Iraq war and what he witnesses in the affluent neighborhoods of northern Tehran, where he delivers pizzas. He is shocked to see a former lieutenant in one of those chic houses. Thanks to Hussein Emaduddin's great performance, the film by no means begs for sympathy. It seems that the tensions of the society in which Hussein lives, has made him an emotionless man. Hussein's toneless attitude and his unusual calmness speaks of a man whose tolerance comes to a rapid explosion at the end. He is a sort of man who is unable to even feel for his fiancé. Robbing young women's purse doesn't seem to interest him either. Throughout the entire film he is in a state of shock. Although the film's plot is based on a true story, its dialog seem a bit incompetent and weak at times. The dolly shots and the overall camera-work however perfectly contributes in suggesting a schizophrenic atmosphere which has indeed been the intention of Panahi as well. Panahi's latest film is very much similar in theme with his previous award winning Dayareh. That film is also recommended for those who enjoyed this one.

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