Writer-director Milad Alami grapples with heavyweight themes in his sophomore feature Opponent. The social-realist style thriller centres around mild-mannered Olympic wrestler Iman (Payman Maadi) who enjoys a quiet life his wife Maryam (Marall Nasiri) and their daughters Asal (Nicole Mehrbod) and Sahar (Diana Farzami). After he is outed as a homosexual by one of his close friends from the local gym, he is forced to flee his home. As this carries a penalty of execution in his native Iran, he desperately escapes to Scandinavia to start afresh, leaving his life behind and reluctantly turning his back on the sport. However, when it proves too difficult to seek asylum without the promise of a steady career, he returns to the ring to compete for the Swedish national team.
The film opens with the quote “My silences had not protected me. Your silence will not protect you” from the poet and civil rights activist Audre Lorde, and this really sets the tone of quiet anguish and establishes the sense of isolation that will follow. Alami himself relocated from Iran to Denmark as a child so must speak from a similar refugee experience, but Iman’s closeted sexuality presents a delicate layer of repression on top of this. The thoughtful framing of shots and an ominous score help to illustrate and amplify the protagonist’s loneliness and despair, with the cleverly constructed mise-en-scene often secluding him within the vast chilly landscapes of his new environment as he suppresses his true feelings.
Keen admirers of international cinema will recognise leading actor Payman Maadi from Asghar Farhadi’s acclaimed Iranian drama A Separation. In this complex central role, he is equally as exceptional; nuanced and emotional, he does so much with his subtle expressions and doesn’t require a lot of dialogue to communicate his deep inner conflict. With the walls closing in, he is continually forced to fight against his natural instincts in order to shield himself and his family from more pain, and Milad Alami’s muscular drama Opponent works as an intensely gripping portrait of fractured masculinity finding its way in unknown territory.
Cinema Perspective 