Themes that combine the horrors of war with supernatural forces are central to Babak Anvari’s wonderfully chilling drama as a mother and daughter face multiple adversaries that are physical, psychological and social. Under the Shadow is not just full of scares (although you will jump!) or graphic depictions of horror both human and mystical, it offers a broader perspective as a claustrophobic drama which mixes tight storytelling with social issues.
It is 1988 and Iran is at war with Iraq, the conflict affecting life in the capital Tehran and placing all those living there in danger. Trying to return to her studies as a doctor and hoping to get through regime rules that have stifled her progression because of her previous political activities Shideh (Narges Rashidi) is informed that her future medical career is not to be. She decides to throw away all her books, with the exception of a single tome, dedicated to her by her recently deceased mother. She is facing a number of issues that make family life in her Tehran apartment increasingly troublesome. With her husband Iraj (Bobby Naderi) called in to help with the war effort as a medical assistant on the front line, Shideh is advised to leave Tehran with her daughter Dorsa (Avin Manshadi) to reside in relative safety with her in-laws outside of the increasingly besieged capital. There are also a number of issues concerning Dorsa. The child has been having recurring nightmares and insists that there is a lady in the house, clad in a chador, who is there to protect her. In time, Shideh begins to have similar nightmare and becomes increasingly fearful of a presence in the house that scares her when she sees shapes and hears movement in their home. Secondly, Dorsa’s trusted comfort doll Kimila has gone missing. Co-incidentally, Shideh’s treasured medical book has also disappeared. The explanations given by her neighbours do not make the situation any easier: they believe that she is being pursued by a mythological Djinn, a spirit that takes a prized possession from its victims as it haunts them relentlessly. Despite her declarations that “Djinn aren’t real, these things don’t exist,” she becomes increasingly convinced that there is a presence in her flat. When an Iraqi missile lands on the roof of the apartment block and the other residents leave, Shideh finally decides to evacuate. But who can say whether her and Dorsa’s fates will be determined by the spirits or the soldiers.
The tense situation focussing on a mother and daughter facing a peril unseen but undeniably real, whether its instigation be human or spiritual, makes for tight and tense film-making, shot in a realistic style that, at times, uses contrasting but natural compositions and angles to emulate the strange within the ordinary. Essentially the film is set within the claustrophobic environment of a flat inside an apartment building within the situation of an increasingly terrifying war but it also has the deeper cultural and spiritual context of a fearsome being that inflicts terror on its tenants. The film comments on wider society in that there are restrictions placed upon the family in a time of war, as well as the social conformity required by the recent Islamic revolution that requires that all women dress a certain way. This comes to the fore when Shideh, terrified following a scare, leaves the apartment without a headscarf and lands herself in trouble with the authorities. The style and viewer relationship to the film’s protagonists recalls many of the subtler and more intense moments in many of Polanski’s films such as the apartment series Repulsion (1965), Rosemary’s Baby (1968) and The Tenant (1976).
What is so welcome about this film is the way that the horrors are, as with the protagonists, largely left unseen or appear merely in brief glimpses that, rather like Robert Wise’s The Haunting (1963) which make the scares all the more direct and – at times – very jumpy without resorting to any visceral excess. Because this is a film about a trapped mother and child the effects are more emotional even as the horror becomes increasingly real and the subtexts involving the missing doll – “I promise we’ll leave when I find it” – become more relevant. Again, the claustrophobia of the location is coupled with the tight length of time the pair have to maintain some semblance of sanity and safety, enhanced by the film’s moderate running time that pulls you entirely in their world without recourse to extraneous subplots or unnecessary exposition.
Succinct and hugely imaginative, Under the Shadow is a family drama that takes in war, politics, religion, gender expectations and folklore in a spiritual horror film environment that is both scary and, because of the context, also very believable. Also included on the disc are a variety of extras (a number of interviews and a commentary track for example) including Babak Anvari’s short Two & Two, a dark and claustrophobic classroom film that takes a similar link between horror and believable indoctrination taken to its extremes via absurdity (2 & 2 =5) with the suppression of thought and individual expression. Under the Shadow is a modern masterpiece of genre horror cinema.