This is another mesmerizing film from Iranian director, Mohsen Makhmalbaf. Makhmalbaf left Iran for Europe in 2005—many of his films, including the neo-realist masterpiece, A Moment of Innocence, are banned in Iran.

Marghe and her Mother is set in Italy and concerns the two titular characters. Marghe is a stubborn and insightful six-year-old, who has a crush on her mother’s ex-boyfriend and thinks that throwing her pacifiers into the sea might lure him back. Marghe’s mother, Claudia, is young and beautiful, but she has little ambition and few interests. Claudia’s desire to be ‘discovered’ leads her and her best friend Guilia to a bizarre, fake game show, and to a fake film audition. The handsome charlatans purporting to be film producers turn out to be as hopeless as Claudia and Guilia and soon the four hatch a ridiculous scheme to steal dogs for money.

While she embarks on this criminal caper Claudia leaves Marghe with Maria, a woman who seems to provide some kind of religious instruction for the local children. This includes holding coins over hot candle flames, and appointing one child to act as the priest while the others confess their sins. Maria seems like a typical religious authority figure threatening hellfire, but there is more to her than meets the eye, as we discover in a scene where she offers affection, advice, sympathy and an outdoor bath to a pregnant teen. All of the teenage girls in this town seem to end up as young mothers, an implicit critique of the Catholic Church’s contraceptive policy.

Marghe, played by young actress Margherita Panatleo, is captivating. She projects an iron-willed charisma, refusing to follow orders and declaring that she doesn’t believe in God. When told that a boy will be playing the priest in their game of confession, she asserts that she has started a new church run by women. In this scene most of the confessions come from boys who are all in love with Marghe. Meanwhile, things go from bad to worse for Claudia and her hapless friends. After a sudden and surprising turn of events, Marghe and her Mother starts to feel like Makhmalbaf’s restrained take on Bonnie and Clyde.

What makes this film so remarkable is intangible; a mere plot summary does not do it justice. It is strange and beautiful and thought-provoking as are the other films of Makhmalbaf and his iconoclastic Iranian contemporaries Abbas Kiarostami and Jafar Panahi. It offers a critique of current economic conditions and organized religion, but it rarely travels in expected directions. It is the kind of film which makes an strong first impression, but also continues to grow in the viewer’s imagination long after it has ended.

It plays September 27, 2019 at 6:00 PM at International Village 9 and September 28, 2019 at 12:45 PM at SFU Goldcorp.