The Cycle (1975 film)
| The Cycle | |
|---|---|
| Directed by | Dariush Mehrjui |
| Produced by |
Parviz Sayyad Bahman Farmanara Malek-Sasan Veisi |
| Written by | Dariush Mehrjui |
| Based on | The play "Aashghaal-duni" by Gholam-Hossein Saedi |
| Starring |
Saeed Kangarani Ezzatollah Entezami Ali Nassirian Esmail Mohammadi Forouzan Bahman Forsi |
| Music by | Hormoz Farhat |
| Cinematography | Houshang Baharlou |
| Edited by | Talat Mirfendereski |
|
Release date
|
April 12, 1978 (Iran) |
|
Running time
|
101 minutes |
| Country | Iran |
| Language | Persian |
| Box office | Over 16 million rials |
The Cycle (Persian: دایرهٔ مینا, Dayereh-ye Mina, also Romanized as Dāyere-ye Minā) is a 1975 Iranian drama film directed and written by Dariush Mehrjui. It is about a young man who is trying to achieve the money needed for the health care of his diseased father, but other incidents later happen to the former. The film stars Saeed Kangarani, Ezzatollah Entezami, Ali Nassirian and Forouzan.
After years of being banned, the film was released in Iran on April 12, 1978. It was Iran's submission for Best Foreign Language Film at the 50th Academy Awards, the first year that Iran participated in the award.
A young man named Ali living along with his family in the suburbs of Tehran, takes his diseased father, Esmail, to a large hospital, but is unable to pay for Esmail's reception and spends a few days outside until he meets Doctor Sameri. Esmail requests Sameri's help; and the latter arranges a location for them. They arrive and Sameri tells them to enter a truck containing a few other people. Ali and Esmail keep asking questions, but do not get answers. They arrive at a laboratory where people's blood is bought. Esmail refuses, but Ali sells some blood in exchange for 20 tomans. Sameri is revealed to be a blood dealer buying the blood of the poor and the addicted with little money and selling it to hospitals. During the time at the hospital with Esmail, Ali meets a young nurse named Zahra. Sameri convinces Ali to work for him and find blood sellers. Esmail's condition keeps getting worse until he dies. Ali continues progressing in his career and starts a new life.
After The Cow, which was an adaptation of Gholam-Hossein Sa'edi's series of novels titled "The Bayal Grievers", The Cycle is the second film that Mehrjui has made based on a novel by Sa'edi and with his contribution. The screenplay of The Cycle is adapted from the novel "Junkyard" of the series "Grave and Cradle". Mehrjui achieves a perfect social realism in The Cycle. A large part of this success is, like The Cow, from Sa'edi's writing. Sa'edi cooperated with Mehrjui and the crew during review and even production. Entezami, who portrays Sameri, comments: "After all, the procedure was like before while you were working with Mehrjui, and the same for the specifics of the character Sameri and his ethical and behavioral attributes; but this time Dr. Sa'edi was present too and every time I worked on a novel by him, it was that way. I always talked to Dr. Sa'edi and used his help." The changes that the film has relative to the novel are mostly due to artistic necessities or because of the more restricted censorship in cinema than in books. Javad Tusi writes at the footer of an article about Mehrjui's "Shirak" film: "Sa'edi emphasizes on the fall of the character Ali in the novel Junkyard by stating the cooperation of Ali with SAVAK agents for exposing and arresting the protesting physician of the hospital; but Mehrjui shows the retrograde process of the character Ali in The Cycle by his indifference towards his father's death due to the impossibility of explicitly stating the former during the time." About that, Omid Roshan-Zamir writes: "Mehrjui has chosen the same realistic style of Sa'edi's in adaptation of this novel and shows the events without redundancy, with a designated method. Due to the circumstances during the time of the production of the film, the part of Ali being a snitch is put aside and instead, the story of a young doctor, who tries to establish a blood laboratory in order to neutralize the blood dealer who sells infected blood to hospitals, is added."
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