When watching the House is Black I felt as if Farrokhzad was pulling the viewer out of their comfort zone into a place that might be uncharted territory for some. The movie reveals that if one looks close enough there is beauty in everything, even if it does appear to be ugly on the surface. Despite the fact that the lepers in the film might be considered aesthetically "ugly" to many, they still worship God and attend school. They show that the human race is very resilient and can overcome obstacles such as disease and physical deformity. The film's jerky editing techniques are similar to dream like sequences in other movies where people and things might appear very abruptly, and hazy. The film Requiem for a Dream directed by Darren Arnofsky came to mind when watching the House is Black. Requiem for a Dream has similar jerky editing techniques to convey the turbulent lifestyle of the drug addicts in the film. This makes sense because the House is Black conveys a numbing feeling that is comparable to the numbness of "the real world" that drugs cause.
Farrokhzad's collection of poetry, Sin, brings about imagery that clarifies many ideas in the movie. In the closing shot of the House is Black the door to the leper colony is shut, and the camera flies over the gates of the place. This is symbolic of the viewer steeping into the leper's life and learning something new. The poem The Wall is similar to the closing scene of the film in that it talks about someone's eyes erecting a wall around Farrokhzad's eyes in the poem. In life people build walls to protect themselves from things that they do not feel comfortable being around. In this case the camera flying over the wall of leper colony shows that we were flown over our wall of comfort in order to see the lepers up close.
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