KILLING MAD DOGS

KILLING MAD DOGS begins with a simple question. What would you do if the person who ruined your life called you from prison asking for help?

Golrokh's husband has disappeared after leaving behind a mountain of debt. Her friends abandon her and the creditors start hounding her. Family members offer sympathy but little assistance. Then, just when things couldn't get worse, her husband is arrested and needs money to secure his release. Against all common sense she sets out to save him.

What follows is one of the most fascinating portraits of modern urban life I've seen in Iranian cinema. Golrokh moves through Tehran meeting former business partners, relatives, acquaintances, and opportunists, each conversation revealing another layer of deception, self-interest, or hidden history. The film gradually transforms into a mystery, a social critique, and a character study all at once.

What makes KILLING MAD DOGS so compelling is the way Beyzai turns every conversation into a negotiation. Nobody simply answers a question. People evade, perform, bargain, lie, confess halfway, then retreat. Golrokh isn't just trying to find money. She's trying to work out which version of reality she's operating in.

Although it was made more than twenty years ago, the film feels remarkably contemporary. It's about financial insecurity, social reputation, corruption, and the impossible task of navigating systems that seem designed to exhaust ordinary people. The details may be specific to Tehran, but the underlying frustrations feel universal.

I also think it makes a fitting companion to THE DESERT OF THE TARTARS, our closing film of the festival. Both are, in very different ways, films about people pursuing something just beyond reach. One looks outward toward society. The other stares into the horizon. Both leave you thinking long after the credits roll.

If you've never seen a Bahram Beyzai film before, this is an excellent place to begin before exploring the rest of his work. After this, I'd point you toward DOWNPOUR, BASHU, THE LITTLE STRANGER and THE TRAVELLERS. Together, they reveal the remarkable range of a filmmaker who moved effortlessly between social realism, myth, history, and modern Iranian life while remaining unmistakably himself.