The Night Bus

The Night Bus (Persian:اتوبوس شب , Otobus-e Shab) is the name of an Iranian motion picture directed by Kiumars Pour-Ahamd. It has been made in 2006 (1385 AH) and released in 2007/8 (1387 AH).

The film, which is in sharp monochrome, relates the story of a twenty-four-hour-long journey of two young Iranian soldiers (Issa and Emād) and a civilian driver (Amu Rahim) transporting thirty-eight Iraqi prisoners of war, taken from behind the Iraqi line, to a garrison inside Iran. From the details one is informed that the Iran-Iraq War has entered into its third year. The film masterfully depicts the deep inhumanity of acts of war amongst nations by showing the shared humanity of the combatants on both sides. Some scenes of the above-mentioned garrison are reminiscent of those of the 1965 British film The Hill.

The film also inaugurates Mehrdād Sadiqiān as one of the most talented of the young actors to come from Iran in the recent years.

Director

• Kiumars Pour-Ahamd

Script

• The film is based on a short script by Habibollah Ahmad-Zādeh, extended by Hasan Shekāri. The final script is due to Kiumars Pour-Ahmad

Camera

• Mehdi Jafari

Music

• Fardin Khal'atbari

Producer

• Mehdi Homayoun-Far

Cast

• Khosro Shakibai: Amu (Uncle) and at times Amu Rahim (Uncle Rahim), the bus driver. Although it is never stated, the film suggests that Amu Rahim's own son is an Irani POW in Iraqi hands.
• Mehrdād Sadiqiān: Issa (Jesu), the 18-year old Iranian soldier from Abadan; he is often called by Amu Rahim, somewhat derogatorily, as Bach'cheh (Child, Juvenile). Issa has entered into military service at the age of 16, when his father was killed while defending Abadan; at the outset of the War, the father had sent his entire family, with the exception of Issa, to his brother's home in another Iranian city for safety.
• Amir-Mohammd Zand: Emād, the second and the more senior Iranian soldier/officer. Emād had just started studying in London when the War broke out, whereon he volunteered as an officer in the army.
• Elnāz Shāker-Doust: Wife of Emād. She and Emād, along with her parents, had been living in London. When Emād volunteered to serve in the War effort, she returned with Emād to Iran, leaving the parents in London.
• Mohammad-Reza Foroutan: Fārouq (Fārouq Abd al-Amir), an Iraqi POW whose father is Iraqi and mother Iranian. It turns out that two of Fārouq's brothers are on the run from the henchmen of Saddam Hossein and a third brother and a sister are in Saddam Hossein's jails, awaiting execution.
• Kourosh Soleimani: Sirvān (Sirvān Foād), an Iraqi POW from Iraq's Kurdistan and a recent medical graduate. Prior to the War, Sirvān had been studying medicine in London; he had only returned to Iraq for bringing his family into safety, but forcefully drafted into Iraqi army.
• Ahmad Kavari: An Iraqi POW and a member of Iraq's Baath Party.
• Mehrān Nātel: An Iranian tank driver from Esfahan who despite having fought valiantly and captured some tanks from Iraqis, seems to be unable to think ill of any one; he appears to live mentally in an Utopian world of his own. Although Mehrān Nātel's appearance in the film is very brief, he shows himself as another extraordinarily talented young actor of the Iranian Cinema.

External links

• Elizabeth Kerr, Night Bus, The Jameson Dublin International Film Festival, 15-24 February 2008, [1].