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| "This cake, it is made from virgin juice. I marinated all night." |
Iranian cinema vet Golab Abdineh plays the matriarch of a poor
family. She's thrown into a tight spot - they have to welcome her
policeman nephew and his bride but they haven't got a single morsel of
food in the house! Like the old school Hitchcock movies, we're
given a slow introduction to the characters, some of which include her
cinema projectionist husband Yousef (Paras Pirouzfar), her naughty young
son Amir, her daughter Bahareh (Melika Sharifinia), and neighbourin
busybodies like a chemist (Amin Hayayee) and an old hag (Farideh Sepah
Mansour). Simply to give the good colonel (he's just a sergeant,
really) and his exquisite wife a feast, everybody puts their wits
together and overcomes adversity in charmin ways. Not dissimilar to the
Asian values of pride and "face" as incessantly repeated in the film,
this tight-knit family is so enamoured with preparation and procedure
that they become instantly likeable, although it may take longer than
usual to relate to their culture of halvas and curious posters of bodybuilders on their walls.
Perennial wonderment:
When you watch a movie like Mama's Guest (2004) @ مهمان مامان Mehmane Maman, you'd realise why fast food
culture in the 20th century completely destroyed the family as a
unit of society. From the process of pickin out the freshest fish to
peelin onions and boilin water, home cookin is one of the last
bastions of family time that ensured everyone had somethin to do and
somethin to talk to each other about. When you place a phone order for
McDonald's Value Meals, that old time tradition becomes a bygone relic. That's why Mama's Guest is still a rewardin watch despite appearin very dated for a 2004 film.
Reminds me of:
Cookin pork feet in vinegar with me gran, God rest her soul. Of course, no pork was depicted in this movie about Moslem people.
Amacam joker, berapa bintang lu mau kasi?
Three stars. Mama's
Guest is a New Year movie -
fun and easy to watch. With quirky scenes like an operation on a
goldfish to wife-beatin antics by a drug addict, one may find this
movie to be just the sort of light entertainment that is interestin
enough to stimulate Hollywood-hardened cinematic taste buds. For further readin, please see what this Mongoose guy wrote.
Trailer for the curious:
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