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Never heard of the island of Kish before? It would be easy to
confuse it with another Kish, in Iraq, an ancient Sumerian city near
the Euphrates River that flourished in the 4th millennium BC. But
look instead for a tiny spot on the map in the Persian Gulf about 15
kms off the Iranian coast - not far away from neighbouring Brahaim
and Kuwait.
Ask anyone in Tehran about the place, and you'll get a prompt
answer: "duty-free - and you don't need a visa to get there."
For some, Kish is already the country's number one tourist
attraction. For the rest of us, here's a charming little omnibus
film titled Ghessé Hayé Kish (Kish Tales) to whet your appetite.
The idea for making these tales for, about, and set in Kish came
originally from the island's tourist office. Then, when an
enterprising producer stepped in to approach some film directors
in Tehran about making a short film of their own choice and
length - as long as it didn't run over a half-hour - the
response was immediately positive. Altogether, five films have
been completed - by Mohsen Makhmalbaf, Abolfazl Jalili, Nasser
Taghvaï, Rakhshan Bani-Etemad, and Bahram Beizai - and a sixth,
by Dariush Mehrjui, is currently in production. The Cannes
festival committee thought so highly of what they saw that three
films were arbitrarily linked together to form a competition
entry under the title Ghessé Hayé Kish.
Nasser Taghvaï's The Greek Boat tells the story of workers on
the island who go regularly to the sea to gather up flotsam
washed up on the beach by passing ships: bottles, crates, boxes,
sometimes valuable objects that have been thrown overboard. One
family dries out the crates - covered with insignia from foreign
companies - to build a house. But when the wife gathers some
objects left by a passing Greek merchant ship, she is later
struck down by a strange illness that the village medical-man
claims came from the Greek vessel.
A director with a style of film-making anchored to realism,
Nasser Taghvaï will be remembered for the prize he won in
Locarno for Captain Khorshid (1987). Abolfazl Jalili's The Ring
describes the fate of a young man from the rural mainland who
arrives illegally on the island to find work. When his sister
writes to say she needs a modest piece of jewellery, the lad is
determined to raise the money needed to buy it, although he
doesn't quite know how to go about it. Jalili is the director
behind the critically acclaimed Det, The Little Girl (1994).
The final part, The Door, is by Mohsen Makhmalbaf - the best
known Iranian director of the trio - whose Time Of Love (1990),
Salaam Cinema (1994), and Gabbeh (1995) were seen previously at
Cannes.
It's not really a story at all, more a lyrical, impressionistic
sketch of a man tramping across the dunes with a wooden door on
his back, followed by his young daughter with a goat in tow.
When the pair reach the sea, they meet a man who offers to buy
the door, which is actually a valuable antique.
Advance word suggests that the other trio of films in the sextet
are also worth seeing: one by Rakhshan Bani-Etemad, widely
recognised as one of Iran's foremost female directors; a second
by Bahram Beizai, which focuses on a woman in the port who
converses with arrivals about the island's customs and beliefs;
and a third by Dariush Mehjui, who is thinking about extending
his short tale into a feature length film.
All of which says that this isolated haven of untouched natural
beauty, with its rural life and closely knit communities, has
much to offer visitors from the mainland as well as strangers
from further afield.
Ron Holloway
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