Carefully paced, mute and primal, this is a quietly affecting cinematic gem.
A suspenseful and daring drama, but it isn't perfectly executed.
Rafi Pitts' sententious, hollow melodrama.
The story dulls into a cat-and-mouse pursuit narrative, with Pitts’s own inexpressive performance one weakness among many.
With his attention divided, and not enough time spent getting to know the Alavi, it’s hard to feel that involved when the high drama begins.
It’s mostly a film that wastes an awful lot of shoe leather and tyre rubber showing Ali walking and driving around in lieu of a meaningful story that’s maybe allegorical and maybe just boring.
The Hunter is an experience which keeps the viewer disorientated, off balance, unsure how to contextualise anything that appears on screen, and I found myself intent on knowing what would happen next, right up to the very last moment.
After a sudden flurry of action the final section turns into a quasi-chamber piece about crime and punishment, at odds with the slow-burn study of personal anguish that occupies its first hour.
Pitts neatly paints his home country as a grim dystopia lorded over by brutal forces. Yet however brave the filmmakers, you can practically hear the gears grinding as the tone shifts about halfway through.
Superbly lit and composed, the film is pared to the bone, leaving the viewer to make his own map of this bleak journey through no man's land into anomie territory.
The distance at which both Pitts the film-maker and Pitts the actor seem intent on keeping us works against the film by not letting anyone in – save, perhaps, audiences versed in Iranian politics.
Luckily, Pitts (the director) conjures moments of alluring bleakness evocative of Melville, including the best fog-based car chase you’ll see all year.
It’s a mysterious and puzzling work, capturing in style and substance the confusion of the character upon whom it focuses.
General release. Check local listings for show times.