Under the Shadow

Description

Babak Anvari’s debut feature is a shiveringly good ghost story set in a Tehran apartment building in the waning days of the Iran-Iraq War. As the film opens, Shideh is told she cannot continue her medical studies because of her past political activism. The decision exacerbates marital tensions with her husband who is already a doctor and has been drafted to the front lines of the conflict. Soon after he leaves, a missile crashes into their building; instead of blowing up, however, it unleashes something a little more malevolent on the building’s tenants. It’s Shideh’s daughter Dorsa who first starts behaving oddly—talking with invisible visitors and fretting about her missing doll. When a neighbor suggests that the building has been overtaken by a djinn that means them all harm, Shideh is initially skeptical but soon comes to believe. In Islamic tradition, a djinn is a supernatural creature that can wreak harm on a person as long as it obtains something meaningful from them, and Under the Shadow offers a particularly chilling example of the havoc one of these beings can create. As the building’s occupants begin leaving in droves, frightened away by the mysterious goings on as well as the large hole in the roof left by the missile, Shideh resolves not to be frightened away even as the djinn lays claim to Dorsa. Atmospheric and unsettling, Under the Shadow is remarkable for being super scary without spilling a drop of blood and for its powerful implications that suggest Iran itself is haunted by an entity that has stolen something very valuable from its people. —Rod Armstrong

Film Details