Tashrih (Dissect)
2019 · 20m · Iran
Directed by Siavash Shahabi
Tones: contemplative, provocative
After a schoolyard fight between two elementary boys ends in one child's death, the surviving boy's teacher is drawn into a police investigation — forced to confront not just what happened, but the moral weight of what he failed to prevent.
Picked by Margot
The scouts
Iranian procedural where the question shifts from whodunit to 'what does inaction owe.' That ethical pivot inside a genre frame is real cinema, and 20 minutes is exactly the right amount of room.
Shahabi shifts the central question from 'what happened' to 'what does inaction owe' — a Kiarostami-adjacent moral procedural disguised as whodunit. Iranian cinema's interrogation grammar applied with patience.
Withholding omniscience from the audience throughout while shifting the central question from 'what happened' to 'what does inaction owe' — that's Iranian moral-realist craft tradition at its sharpest, and the procedural disguise is the right Trojan horse. 20-minute runtime fits the procedural register.
Reviews
The mystery of what happened provides enough intrigue to sustain one's attention and, despite the 20-minute runtime, the pacing of the film creates and maintains effective tension.
Alireza Sanifar's performance as the teacher is quite impressive as he is able to portray how his character processes the trauma and escalating responsibility largely without dialogue.
Festivals
- Tehran International Short Film Festival 2019, Grand Prix
- Palm Springs International ShortFest 2019
- Krakow Film Festival 2019
- Tirana Film Festival 2019