Those Three

Those Three tells a story of three men who are very close to finishing the military training they are immersed in when the group decides to escape from the path that lies ahead of them for the possibility of genuine freedom. The men leave the camp and head directly into an icy cold and frozen region of Iran. These men must rely solely on each other to make it through unbearable coldness and survive the experience. The journey tests their friendships as well as their personal strengths. It is a journey of faith and of courage.

It was extremely disappointing to see so much determined and noteworthy efforts going to waste with Those Three, but the filmmaking was often lethargic and dull. This film managed to go far beyond any reasonable expectations of what would sometimes be considered careful or nuanced storytelling. Unlike many successful artistic films, this is an example of one that contains all the elements necessary to evoke emotion but lacks any of the connective tissue needed to make the threads weave together seamlessly. While the ambitions of the filmmakers was clear and the heart of the film was in the right place this remains a difficult exploration because it never manages to take flight and become the kind of captivating cinematic dream it desired to be.

Those Three almost feels like a silent film for much of the run time. This isn't necessarily a bad thing. Silent films are often the greatest films ever made! It always depends upon the film itself. In this particular instance, unfortunately, the lack of sound for much of the story seems to inhibit the filmmakers by making the actors and consequently their characters less emotionally resonant. There are many moments where the actors seem to struggle to convey genuine emotion and there seems to have been room for more character development if there had been more compelling and memorable dialogue exchanged between the characters. If more time had actually been spent on establishing these characters (rather than the heavy reliance upon visuals alone) the entire work would have been dramatically improved and the film may have actually managed some success in crafting captivating storytelling.

This is a unique film, one with grand ambitions, and also one that demonstrates a rather unique director's eye. The film was made in Iran and it is always a pleasure to see cinema that strives to entertain and educate global audiences as this film attempts to. Those Three has clearly aimed to do exactly that, but the shortcomings of the poorly constructed narrative prevents these moments from ever feeling realized. Those Three remains an interesting experiment that never manages to succeed at its ambitions. At least this was an experiment that failed, rather than something that never attempted to create anything memorable for audiences at all. The film comes up short but with its head held up high.

The DVD:

Video:

Those Three is presented in non-anamorphic widescreen in the theatrical aspect ratio. This is a disturbingly poor transfer that seems far below any reasonable standards for quality in video. Colors look horribly muted; the film is incredibly soft with no impressive clarity or definition, black levels are obviously extremely poor as well, and the overall presentation seems hardly presentable at all. This DVD transfer fails on all fronts and it was detrimental to the viewing experience as well.

Audio:

The stereo mix included on this release is disappointingly dull and uninvolving. The sound stage is barely used for the entirety of the film. Music occasionally creeps in but is often barely heard, and the focus of the film seems to be more on silence than on any attempt at an immersive audio experience. The dialogue is poorly reproduced as well and is not as loud or crisp as it should be. The quality of the audio on this release is unacceptable (even if it is a result of how the film was made - though whether or not that is the case remains somewhat unclear). Presented in the Farsi and Turkish languages with non-removable English subtitles, the translation is poor in quality and features a number of spelling and grammatical errors which detract from the presentation.

Extras:

The only extra is a DVD-ROM accessible Discussion Guide with a biography for the director and notes on the film. The guide also gives information about Iran, the country where the film was made. This guide was a big improvement over the guide included on the Global Lens DVD release for The Photograph (which appeared to be an incomplete version with correction notes still left on the guide). If someone were to actually host a film discussion or teach a class with Those Three as a part of the curriculum this guide would be useful for those individuals. 

Final Thoughts:

Those Three attempts to tell a compelling story. It's unfortunate that the film fails to be anywhere near as interesting or moving as it intends. The film just isn't good enough to recommend. The DVD release is astonishingly poor (with the only decent aspect being the OK Film Guide included for DVD-ROM drives).  Skip It.

Neil Lumbard is a lifelong fan of cinema. He aspires to make movies and has written two screenplays on spec. He loves writing, and currently does in Texas.