Mitra (2021)

Directed by: Kaweh Modiri | 107 minutes | drama | Actors: Jasmin Tabatabai, Mohsen Namjoo, Shabnam Toloui, Avin Manshadi, Sallie Harmsen, Dina Zarif, Aram Ghasemy, Hamid Djavadan, Ash Goldeh, Ariane Gray, Payam Madjlessi, Sam Mahinnejad, Dic van Duin, Coen van Vlijmen, Bert Hana

With ‘Mitra’ (2021), Dutch filmmaker Kaweh Modiri (1982) is filming his own book of the same name (2020). Knowing that the book was inspired by an event in his own family, it’s understandable that he wanted to keep control over the film adaptation. Mitra is an Iranian young woman, whom we don’t really get to know well. She is the daughter of the actual protagonist of the film, Haleh. Modiri himself did not know the real Mitra either. She died when his mother was pregnant with him.

‘Mitra’ is set alternately in the Iranian capital Tehran in the 1980s and the present-day Dutch Arnhem, approximately four decades later. Mitra was executed in politically toxic Iran. After this traumatic event, Haleh fled to the Netherlands. She has committed herself to her career. She has now proven herself as an academic, but of course the woman has never forgotten the betrayal towards her daughter. We get to know her as a somewhat headstrong, not exactly warm-hearted woman. The viewer has to take out of the story later that there is immense pain hidden behind her business mask, and that that pain may even be the cause of it.

We hardly get to know anything about the how and why of the title character’s execution. That’s a shame, and that makes the scenes set in the eighties feel superfluous. What is important is that this political murder could have been prevented if one woman had not spoken out of her mouth. And let that woman show up in Arnhem after all these years. After a tip from two members of The Organization (a resistance movement against the Iranian authorities, in which Mitra was involved), Haleh becomes obsessed with this woman and perhaps even more so with her teenage daughter Nilu. She brings in her brother Mohsen, who emigrated to Germany. She wants to make sure it’s the same woman. After all, how can you recognize someone you’ve only really heard after forty years?

That doubt of Haleh and especially of Mohsen keeps the tension in it. The feelings of revenge are completely recognizable. But as much as you want revenge, do you put someone on the scaffold if you’re not sure they’re responsible for your grief? The conflict is understandable, but Haleh goes a step too far. Mohsen is her moral compass. The viewer’s sympathy is therefore more with him. Due to the lack of emotional depth and background information, ‘Mitra’ does not have the impact that the filmmaker probably intended. Yet the film makes you think about unprocessed and/or invisible grief. Even decades later, this can still affect people’s actions.