Often done in tandem with fellow writer-director Abbas Kiarostami, Jafar Panahi's deceptively simple, real time Hitchcockian films have dealt with a troubled adult social world through a child's eyes, with greed and repression, women's rights, the shrinking up of the middle class and a subsequent increase in poverty. Surely it must be disingenuous of him to assert that he is not "a political director, that is not my intent." 

Panahi, an award-winning "public enemy" director whose socially conscious films have been banned in his native Iran and break that country's laws with every overseas viewing,  returned a National Board of Review Freedom of Expression Award and protested U.S. Homeland Security fingerprinting requirements by not coming to last year's New York Film Festival. Earlier, he had been chained to a bench while in transit at JFK and rerouted back to Hong Kong.      

Insisting further that "it's up to the viewer to be willing to reflect and interpret," Panahi presents his most recent, Crimson Gold/Talaye sorgh, scripted by Kiarostami and derived from newspaper articles. Starkly underlit against the brighter street entrance framed on either side by black as-yet unraised security shutters, the introduction occurs over real time, as a jewelry shop robbery is botched. Demanding a blue-and-gold piece from yesterday's pyramid display, the would-be thief shoots the owner and, a crowd having gathered outside, resignedly puts the pistol to his own temple.

Though neither focus nor film is ever again as clearly defined as these shutter-framed, camera-steady three minutes-plus, what follows explains. As if the self-inflicted gunshot report ushered in light, it is daytime, and small, woman-obsessed Ali (Kamyar Sheissi) shows the contents of a handbag he has found to Hussein Emadeddin (Hussein Emadeddin), soon to be his brother-in-law. Tall and obese, with a fleshy face that narrows his eyes into slits, cynical, taciturn in the extreme, the latter dismisses a know-it-all (Ehsan Amani) who eavesdrops and horns in. The purse contains a cut wedding band -- "I guess marriage made her fat"-- and necklace receipt for seventy-five million rials (roughly US $9,000), a figure Ali cannot even read, much less comprehend. The two friends go to Mr. Vaziri's (Shahram Vaziri) upscale shop but, poorly dressed, are advised to visit a cheap Galunbadak bazaar gold stall, instead.

What is happening is all flashback, as the camera tracks the ponderous, perhaps slow-witted Hussein through the series of routine, humiliating experiences that lead him to the crime and senseless act of despair, for he is the foiled thief, the murderer and suicide. The point is not mystery, or who? but why, what in the oppressive life of eight-million-population Tehran causes such an act?

A motorbike pizza deliveryman, Hussein is a gentle giant, well-spoken of by all. The actors are non-professionals, with Emadeddin playing himself, a real-life pizza deliveryman and a paranoid schizophrenic, to boot, who frequently disregarded his director's instructions and nearly quashed the project. His haunting minimalist performance is not at fault here. He will marry the sister (Azita Rayeji) but shows neither affection nor desire; he takes cortisone, but the reason is not clear; he was in the army, at the front with a Mr. Chayestev, but is unrecognizable now; a dead fellow deliveryman's blood and stolen pizza and sneaker elicit no reaction; he is stymied by police arresting party-goers for dancing and noncommittally hands out his cold slices to soldiers, detainees and revelers alike; he accepts hospitality from wealthy returnee Pourang (Pourang Nakhayi), emotionlessly drinks his liquor, wanders about the triplex apartment and home gym, and jumps into the swimming pool.

Alone, he lives poorly with a parrot and observes neighbors being arrested. Expressively inexpressive, nowhere does he voice a protest, until the opening-ending scene when he curses the curious onlookers. Tonelessly monosyllabic, to his fiancée he denies anger, and his word is true. In theory, he is a mute Everyman, the butt of everyone, with hysteria building slowly within at the thousand daily outrages that flesh is heir to.

But we must be allowed to see this -- through gestures, a confidant, a word, act or piece of paper, whatever -- and Crimson Gold does not do it. Beneath a dark surface that hints at bitter humor, something bubbles but so quietly as to be inaudible over the rustling clothing and footfalls of Hussein. Here is a pressing tale to be told, but the film misses it in neglecting a cardinal rule that story needs to engage and inform and that something must happen. Because of Panahi's quiet, subtle "background story," that "something" is not communicated. 

(Released by Wellspring Media; not rated by MPAA.)