Fish & Cat
aka Mahi va gorbeh First screened and reviewed in October 2025
Director: Shahram Mokri. Cast: Babak Karimi, Saeed Ebrahimifar, Mohammad Berahmani, Faraz Modiri, Siavash Cheraghipour, Abed Abest, Neda Jebrelli, Pedram Sharifi, Arnavaz Safari, Parinaz Tayyeb, Milad Rahimi, Ainaz Azarhoush, Samaneh Vafaei, Mona Ahmadi, Mohammad Reza Malek, Nazanin Babaei, Nima Shahrabi, Pouya Shahrabi, Khosrow Shahraz, Shahi Karamroudi. Screenplay: Shahram Mokri. In Brief:
Snares us into its grander and trickier designs just like a—killer might? An exercise that assumes much bigger stature.
VOR:⑤
Watch the film theorists, slasher fans, and production logisticians get hyped at the same time! A tour-de-force and cultural breakthrough.
What if About Elly was The Hills Have Eyes? What if Friday the 13th was L'Avventura was Friday the 13th? What if Wolf Creek were a couple hours' drive from Tehran? What if, while I was talking to you, I started talking to someone else about what I was saying to you, and both conversations played out at once, and you never noticed? What if Russian Ark was Iranian, and had a body count, somewhere between one and a dozen, but not one drop of blood could be shed onscreen?
Fish & Cat might not need to be 140 minutes, and I think I see what I'd have cut before filming. Still, what an imaginative horror experiment and censorship workaround, what a total throwdown at the technical level (not just the continuous shot but the sound mix and the negotiation of depth of field throughout), and what a sinister piece of work that's also a meta-reflection on the sinister, in life and in art.
Also, what if the (magnificent, tense, upsetting) beginning is actually the end? What if I have to watch this again?
One final note: Mahmoud Kalari, the same cinematographer who pulled off the near-impossible here, also shot Gabbeh, A Moment of Innocence, Leila, The Wind Will Carry Us, and A Separation, all of which are photographically pristine, none of which look anything alike, even when the directors overlap. Holy moly. Say his name!! Grade:B+
(I originally wrote this capsule on Letterboxd, where you can comment.)
