Fremont (2023)
Directed by Babak Jalili
Fremont (2023)
Directed and edited by Babak Jalili
Written by Jalili and Carolina Cavalli
Anaita Wali Zada (l.) and Fazil Seddiqui in “Fremont”
Trauma, and its resulting symptoms known as post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), are now well-known in society. Movies and TV shows use PTSD as a plot point, newspaper reports blame it for all manner of criminal, addictive, or antisocial behavior, and everyone knows there's a book called "The Body Keeps the Score." There aren't enough therapists in the world to deal with just the trauma of the last five years -- Trump, COVID, climate change -- but show me an adult, any adult, who isn't primarily dealing with some form of unconscious emotional debt from long ago. Of all the people I know, only one person, a close friend, fits that description.
Everyone is, of course, unhappy/mentally ill/PTSD in their own way. I recently went to the memorial of an acquaintance who was a fearless activist. Person after person from all manner of organizatons spoke about how inventive, effective, and tireless he had been, not only in affecting or leading change, but in inspiring others. But the flip side of that was the crushing lows he also went through. Then he couldn't do anything but retreat in misery for months at a time, completely disabled by depression.
Most people's highs and lows are not as extreme as his, otherwise society couldn't function. In "Fremont," a young Afghan immigrant to California lives a quiet, lonely existence. Donya gets along with people, but has no love in her life, and worst of all, can't sleep. Living in Fremont -- a San Francisco Bay Area suburb that happens to be the city with the most Afghan immigrants in the U.S. -- she gets along all right, but is far from flourishing. She works in a fortune cookie factory, where career mobility means going from wrapping the paper slips inside the cookies to being the person who writes the fortunes. (As a former technical writer who wrote software configuration manuals, I deeply identified with her character when, asked what her job was, she answers "I'm a writer.")
In a movie less willing to take its characters seriously, this job change might lead to a series of comic mishaps which would somehow lead to a romantic happy ending. When Donya slips her phone number into a cookie like a message in a bottle, it seems like the movie is taking this route. But instead her employer somehow finds out. We don't see how, only that the boss's wife wants to fire Donya, but he protects her.
Apparently neither one of them let Donya know they've intercepted her message. So when she gets a mysterious text proposing an apparent rendezvous, she borrows a car and drives across the state for a blind date. What happens next is unexpected and bittersweet and really moving.
There's very little story in this film. Aside from a series of gently comic and equally embarrassing scenes where Donya sees a psychiatrist -- who seems to need someone to talk to as badly as she does -- not much happens. So the movie's ending, while scarcely very dramatic, carries exactly enough weight. As a viewer, you don't realize how deeply you're wrapped up in what happens to this young woman until it does.
Donya is played by first-time actress Anaita Wali Zada, and while she's not called on to display a great range of emotions, she is very good at what she does. In a film full of stillnesses, she's very still. Similarly, the direction by Babak Jalili, an Iranian emigrant director with three previous feature films to his credit, is quiet and still. The camera almost never moves. But it's a gorgeous movie.