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This Iranian film is about poor people, who live hard lives. A mechanic arrives in a city in search of work, living in a hostel for men who live on next to nothing and send the bulk of their low wages 'home' to support their families. This is the tough end of a neo-industrial society, with all the disadvantages of development and few of the benefits. Finding work in a scrap yard as a casual worker, a young woman catches his eye and he begins to lurk around her isolated house. When bad news arrives about her husband, who has apparantly been kiilled in an accident while working overseas, he begins to woo the woman and they begin a pragmatic marriage. There is really very little that can change in these people's lives, except the ever present risk of a one way journey into destitution. The first husband finally returns, an amputee, with no income and no prospect of work, this gloomy story is finally resolved by suicide.
''Zemestan" is one of the few films in competition where the national origin of the production seems significant and is notable for having been produced within a tight framework of censorship. The careful camerawork builds a coherent sense of an industrial district in which people take second place to machines, an unremitting environment of railway-lines and heavy used highways, barren industrial yards and poor quality housing, all products of the country meeting the city. The dialogue is simple and pragmatic. These people have little to say, beyond the daily struggle to carry-on, but the film respects the desperation of their lives and provides a glimpse of an Iran far removed from the cliches of television news.
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