‘Retouch’ criticism unravels storyline

Award winning ‘Retouch’, a crime story without murder directed by Kaveh Mazaheri and produced by the Iranian Young Cinema Society, is reviewed here.

The movie is possibly the story of a revenge or family retribution, though not a psychopathic unreasonable reaction.

It is the realization of an unplanned scenario by the first character in the story, where the young woman tries to end up where she wants; a perfect happy ending.

As the young husband is someday exercising, using heavy weights, suddenly he is about to die. He then calls out to his wife for help. The woman, apparently incapable of lifting the weight from the man’s neck, gives it a try, though useless.

As the man’s number seems to have been up, the woman smiles. She even waits for the man to make his last breath, and despite medical emergency service being a call away, she leaves the house, to ensure her husband is dead.

The dialogs exchanged at the beginning of the movie had indicated the couple’s chilly relations.

When the woman attends the workplace, she sends a text to her husband (as evidence for her innocence), and even remembers having cleaned her fingerprints on the weight’s handle.

She then practices facing the corpse. Everything is planned, to depict a full-fledged murder, where the director surprises the audience.

Better watch yourself.

MF/MG