The Precinct (2010)

The Precinct belongs to that fine tradition of films where a flawed and trouble protagonist winds up in purgatory after an accident that is mostly their fault, and must do some soul searching in order to get out alive. In The Precinct, purgatory is none other than a remote precinct presided over by an eerie and pale bald man. The hero in question is Gabir, a world renowned photographer who has finally given up his playboy ways to marry fellow artist Sabina. But while on a photographic expedition to Gobustan, the couple have a fight over Gabir's possibly delaying the wedding to take a job offer in Africa. While driving home, a mysterious clay man walks out into the middle of the road, they hit him, and plunge down the cliffs. They are rescued by two strange and rather rude policemen who bring them to the precinct. The scenes in the precinct are quite stagy and dialogue heavy, and director Ilgar Safat makes heavy use of saturated colors, white noise, and dutch angles; it is enough to make one dismiss the film as rather amateur. But then the movie flashes back twenty years to Gabir's teenage years in a small coastal town. Here Safat really delivers, especially in his use of sparse wide shots that show off the barren countryside. The flashback, which makes up a good chunk of the film is very much at odds with the kind of X-Files/M. Night Shamalayan opening, and one really has to wonder why this was not the whole film, because the drama here is so strong. The supernatural elements really act as a crutch, and bog down the movie. Ideally, they would have been incorporated in a similar way that Erice used Frankenstein's monster in The Spirit of the Beehive, and Taboada used witchcraft in Poison for the Fairies. Because as it stands, the flashback sequence is self contained, and does not connect to the rest of the film except in a superficial manner. However, despite its flaws, The Precinct is entertaining and gripping filmmaking. Safat is certainly creative, and one hopes his next film corrects the flaws of his first.