Meeting Evil
2002 · 12m · Suecia
Directed by Reza Parsa
Tones: contemplative, dark
A man gets into a car and records a farewell message for his young daughter. He explains why he is about to blow himself up in protest against the dictatorship under which he lives.
Picked by Margot
The scouts
Everyone expects the suicide bomber to be a monster or a victim; Parsa does something weirder—he makes him a father, which somehow makes the whole thing more unsettling, not less. The film refuses the easy catharsis of either condemnation or sympathy, which is exactly the kind of mess that makes consensus scouts uncomfortable.
This is formally austere in the best sense: twelve minutes in a car, a single monologue, and Parsa trusts the restraint completely—no score, no cutaways, just the weight of what's being said settling into the frame like mise-en-scène. It sits in a lineage with structural minimalism and political portraiture that demands the viewer's complicity in witnessing.
The entire film hinges on the decision to shoot it as unbroken testimony rather than fragmented confession, and that choice—letting the camera witness without flinching or intercutting—transforms what could've been manipulation into something that actually *means* something about accountability and presence.