Bakhshi and Najdi’s collecting is inextricably linked to their art. They are both painters. Although they paint separately, in different styles and shapes—Haghighi enjoys comparing their methods—both create large, realistic yet imaginative paintings using images compiled from scattered photo albums, and both clear small-scale elements for use in collages. But what is artistic is not only that they use found objects, but also that they think about these pieces and discover the histories they contain. While the film centers on Iran’s current political and social crises, it also brings to light the public and private dark aspects, moments and corners of Iranian history that Bakhshi and Najdi discuss in detail. One of the albums in the couple’s collection is filled with photographs (of extraordinary, poignant provenance) from the 1940s and ’50s of women kidnapped as children and forced into prostitution. Another includes photographs of men in swimsuits (apparently from the sixties or early seventies) at a swimming spot that appears to be a meeting place for gay men. A large collection of notebooks belonging to an unknown man turns out to be a treasure trove of foreign art; a prolific fanatically pursued life project consisting of drawings and speculative writings on a wide range of scientific and spiritual subjects.
Haghighi’s filming of the couple, their work, and their world is artistic in itself; He responds to them with images and cinematic applications that offer visual diversity and energetic invention of their dramatic features, bringing their ideas and observations to the big screen. In response to a conversation in which the couple decries the prevalence of tattoos, Haghighi shows startling close-ups of the tattoos on his assistants’ skin (as well as the tattoos Bakhshi got in his youth). The director follows the couple on their collection tour, interviewing dealers in an antique shop and a rug shop about this different pair of customers. He also interviews a psychologist about hoarding from a medical and emotional standpoint – but he does so ironically, in contrast to the serious, intense and highly principled practicality of the couple’s passion for archives.
Although large-scale politics permeate their work, Bakhshi and Najdi place greater emphasis on the fact that their collecting and archiving practices—the collection and preservation of overlooked, discarded, and seemingly banal materials—exemplify a vitally political ideal. Their collections are not just a treasure trove of raw aesthetic wonders, but also an “act of rebellion,” a way to “resist” official histories that privilege the stories and works of the rich and powerful. The couple’s collection celebrates the experiences and creations of ordinary people who would otherwise be lost to history along with their underrated treasures.
Haghighi’s inspiration, above all else, from the couple’s work is boldly displayed in his original approach to archival footage; This is also a living lesson for the world’s filmmakers. He quotes and shows the item in the collection that sparked his desire to make the film: an album of slides depicting the family life and scientific work of an academic botanist. The portraits in the album (family outings in the countryside, a wedding, domestic gatherings) seem at first glance extraordinary, even ordinary. But after offering these first glimpses, Haghighi’s camera goes to work, focusing macrophotographically on small groups, individual faces and gestures. Their reframing reveals that these ordinary images contain hidden portraits that have the grandeur and power of classical paintings. At times, ultra-close-ups go even further, highlighting indistinct forms of shadow and light, color and shape, along with the intensified grain of the photographic image, leading to a haunting series of avant-garde abstractions. Haghighi’s highly technical quest for latent demotic beauty parallels the couple’s own passion, while also offering a sharp practical and artistic lesson for all filmmakers: to use archival footage not as background history but as subjects in their own right, as much in need of unrestrained directorial intervention as any fictional subject. “I Deserve a Lover…” is an exciting display of humanist enthusiasm, aesthetic inspiration and creative freedom on both sides of the camera.
This first week, NYFF presents two more outstanding documentaries: William and David Greaves’ “Once Upon a Time in Harlem” (the recent completion of William Greaves’s 1972 gathering of Harlem Renaissance luminaries in Duke Ellington’s apartment that evokes the movement and foregrounds its enduring impact); and Yuval Abraham and Rachel Szor’s “NAZA” (detailing, through interviews with Israeli intelligence officers and soldiers, how AI-enabled systems led to high civilian deaths in Gaza). There may be others I haven’t seen yet. But the program isn’t limited to fiction that emerges in ways that boldly defy expectations. One of the most notable is French director Arthur Harari’s “The Unknown,” a surprisingly realistic take on fantasy. His previous film, “Onoda: 10,000 Nights in the Woods” (released in the US in 2022), was extremely realistic and scripted, but “The Unknown” begins with a high level of mastery that gains great dramatic intensity from the filmmaker’s sincere and fervent curiosity. Harari’s realism is not an imposed form but the result of fiercely focused attention.