Review of the short film "Tamed" directed by Saleh Bokharaei

“Tamed” short film, directed by Saleh Bokharaei, is a formalist film that conveys its content to the audience in the shortest possible time using the actor's body and precise decoupage.

Some film theorists consider the short film to be the closest form of film to the concept of art. Tamed short film has also chosen the nearest form of a short film to art.

A man who seems to have an ideal life, waters the flowers and sleeps peacefully, but the world of sleep shows the viewer a new face of his disturbed psyche. Carl Gustav Jung, a famous philosopher and psychologist, believes that for every psychological force there is a competing force. The shadow is a competing force for the persona. It is the half-dark shadow of human existence, which often hides itself behind the mask of a persona.

In this short film, the shadow comes out from behind the persona's mask while sleeping, which can represent the suppressed power of emotions. It can be just the dark side of existence or  the manifestation of human's inner fears that manifest themselves in the shape of demons or evil people in dreams. In this short film, Devil, appears in the character's body and shows his torments and sufferings in the best possible way.

The actor's body is well provided by the shadow. In the meantime, the director changes the form of the film while sleeping, from the form of a theater to a cinematic form and shows that he has sufficient knowledge of cinema and its possibilities.

After waking up, the shadow disappears again, and the man returns to his normal life as if nothing had happened. The film shows a "tamed" human who hides his shadow by habit in order to live a normal life based on predetermined principles just like all of our lives.

Mahsa Alinaghian