2019-06-20

Golden Goblet Awards Competition Films | CASTLE OF DREAMS: The Self-redemption of A \"Bad\" Father

The drama film CASTLE OF DREAMS, which is an Iran\'s entry of Golden Goblet Awards, screened at the Shanghai International Film Festival today. Director Seyyed Reza Mir-Karimi, his son, who is the producer and other main creators, came to the site to communicate with the audience.

The film tells the story of a father and his children who rebuild their relationship after they have been absent for three years. Mother was seriously ill in hospital, and her life is in danger. At this time, the father who abandoned the family for a long time finally appeared. Anxious and uncertain, he had no choice but to take his son and daughter with him. And the loving father figure that the mother used to create for her children with lies will collapse at any time.

It\'s the same with Iranian movies that Chinese audiences are familiar with; the film is based on the lives of ordinary Iranians and focuses on a family conflict. In terms of technique, however, the film borrows the shell of a road movie, where the father drives home with his two children after his ex-wife\'s death, meeting his lover, his ex-wife\'s employer, his ex-wife\'s brother and the police along the way. Asked why he came up with the idea of a road movie, the director said that emotions are more easily amplified when the characters are closer in a relatively closed space.

The end of the film was also unexpected to the audience. When the hero bumps into an unknown object and decides to get out of the car to check, the film comes to an abrupt end. The director said the ending was meant to echo the previous plot. At the beginning of the story, the hero was jailed for hit-and-run in a car accident and is forced to leave his wife and children behind. And then in the journey with the children, the hero gradually learned to assume responsibility and protect the family through a series of stories. The director said, "When the accident happened again, the father did not choose to escape but to get out of the car to check, and the ending that the audiences want is already clear."

Although this is an Iranian film, the story of a "bad man" getting better can take place in any country in the world. The director said that humanity in the family has always been the theme of his concern, and humanity is the common ground of all peoples.

The director also noted that the film\'s English name, "Shirin\'s Castle", comes from an Iranian allusion. In the film, mother Shirin tells her children a lie about their father that he bought them bicycles and built them a castle. On the other hand, there was once a princess named Shirin in Iranian history, who was a representative of faithful love in many Iranian art works. The director said that he hoped to make the audience firmly believe in love through this allusion. He said, "The ex-wife\'s maintenance of her husband\'s image also reflects her love for her husband."

This is the first time director Seyyed Reza Mir-Karimi has attended Shanghai International Film Festival. He said, there are many excellent Asian filmmakers are known and recognized through European film festivals. With its ancient civilization and long history, Asia is the cradle of world culture, and Asia needs an influential platform like the Shanghai International Film Festival to allow filmmakers from all over the world to communicate and cooperate closely.