The House Is Black (1963) poster
1963 · documentary · short · iranian

The House Is Black

Directed by Forugh Farrokhzad21m1963
ElsewhereIMDb7.86kTMDB7.4148
  • heavy
  • measured
  • intense
  • signature
Movie DNA

Heavy, measured, measured documentary / short, inventive in texture. Ambivalent, intimate, measured, hand-scored across twelve axes of taste.

How every film is hand-scored →

Set in a leper colony in the north of Iran, The House is Black juxtaposes "ugliness," of which there is much in the world as stated in the opening scenes, with religion and gratitude.

Our read · The House Is Black (1963) reads as a heavy, measured, inventive documentary · short · iranian entry — measured in intensity, intimate in scope, measured in temperature, ambivalent in outlook, with a strong directorial signature. Hand-scored on twelve axes of taste — mood, pacing, weirdness, hope, stakes, humour, reality, density, warmth, auteur, intensity, and era — with a derived palette drawn from its dominant cinematography.

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The shape of The House Is Black

Tonight, this looks like

What watching it is actually like.

You want a short poetic documentary on suffering, faith and beauty amid leprosy.

ends warmit stays with youmeditativegrips from the openattention 4/5breezes bysubtitles: full
Date nightWith friendsSoloWith parentsKids around

Skip it tonightSkip if stark images of disease and artistic shorts are not for tonight.

DNA · twelve axes

The reading.

Each axis is hand-scored — not derived from votes or genre averages. The marker shows where this film sits; the gradient fill uses the film's own cinematography palette.

Mood · HeavyCosy
Pacing · Slow-burnKinetic
Intensity · GentleExtreme
Weirdness · ConventionalSurreal
Hope · NihilisticRedemptive
Stakes · IntimateEpic
Humour · NoneBroad
Reality · GroundedFantastical
Density · SparseTwisty
Warmth · ColdTender
Auteur · TransparentSignature
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