Simin (I)

A fine example of the female-led melodramas of the 1950s that revived Iranian cinema after a long hiatus during WWII, The Last Night follows Monir, a happily married woman who gets blackmailed by her former lover and must rely on an actress to clear her name. There’s a striking sense of 1950s Iranian cosmopolitanism, especially when the camera leaves the studio and ventures into the streets of Tehran or the ski resorts in the north of the city.