Writer-director Shahram Mokri’s 2017 Invasion begins like many a science fiction film before it: with a series of title cards establishing certain details about its futuristic setting. For the last three years, darkness has been ever-present throughout the land. Several diseases have spread throughout society, with the text noting that authorities have been especially interested in one. We also learn that a man named Ali has been arrested for the murder of another man, Saman. The screen shows an unnerving image: a building that’s been starkly lit, with a dark spiral above it in the night sky. Precisely what this is, or where the darkness came from, is not addressed in the story that follows. Mokri and his collaborators have other things on their minds.
A warning here: Invasion is very much an immersive and experiential film. As such, it’s challenging to write about it without spoiling some of the surprises that the film has in store for its viewers. It’s also a film that, by its writer-director’s own account, rewards multiple viewings. There will be some spoilers here, is what I’m trying to say.
Ali, we’ll come to learn, is one member of a team of athletes that plays a sport called ITIN inside of an arena. That arena, along with its locker rooms and practice facilities, are what makes up the locations of this film. When Invasion opens, a group of investigators have brought him there and released him from his handcuffs; they’re asking them to re-enact the events around Saman’s death. A kind of ambiguity has already entered the proceedings: there’s the matter of Saman’s body, which is unaccounted for, while Ali’s voiceover narration finds him thinking of confessing—but in a way that suggests that he didn’t commit the crime of which he’s been accused.
As the re-enactment continues, with Saman’s twin sister Negar standing in for him (Saman and Negar are played by a single actor, Elaheh Bakhshi), it becomes clear that something was very wrong with Saman. A scene between Ali and Negar-as-Saman sees Ali hand his teammate a canister containing his blood. A line of narration suggests that the team is “frightened Saman’s sister might be like Saman.” And in the re-enactment, Negar-as-Saman tells Ali, “The more I resist the worse I’ll get.” Gradually, the shape of things becomes more and more apparent: Saman’s teammates were giving him blood to keep him sated, but he was increasingly demanding more of it.
Though the word “vampire” is never uttered, it becomes clear enough that one of the diseases the authorities are concerned about is a kind of vampirism. (In an interview on the blu-ray edition of the film, Mokri cites Thirst, Let the Right One In, and Only Lovers Left Alive as works that inspired him in the way they treated vampirism.) That said, as a subplot involving one of the investigators shows, it’s not the only uncanny condition affecting the residents of this region.
Mokri structured and shot this film using two big formal innovations. The first is that the entire film is shot in one continuous take, something he had also done with his previous film Fish & Cat. (Also highly recommended, and something of an answer to the question of what a slasher film would look like if made in a style reminiscent of Béla Tarr.) The other big formal move in Invasion is the way that the narrative loops around. Around 45 minutes into the film, Ali essentially steps out of the loop with a different character taking his place, and we see a host of events from alternate perspectives, gradually clarifying more and more about Ali’s relationships with both Saman and Negar—and, yes, what exactly happened on the night Saman went missing.
Abed Abest’s haunted performance as Ali helps to keep a technically, thematically, and structurally bold film emotionally rooted. One of the aspects of his performance is his relationship to both twins; an early line of his narration finds him recalling sweating whenever Saman was near him, and he seems equally attracted to Saman’s sister. Negar’s dialogue complicates matters, as she implies that several of the interactions Ali had with Saman were actually with her, and that the siblings would take turns hiding inside of a suitcase while the other was out in the world. This blurring of gender and desire led to Invasion being nominated for the Teddy Award, a long-standing prize for queer cinema, at the Berlin International Film Festival. As Mokri explained in an interview on the blu-ray for Invasion, this ended up causing most of its screenings to be cancelled when the filmmaker returned to Iran with the film.
It’s also possible to watch the film and wonder if there actually are two twins at all, or if one sibling has been acting out both roles. It isn’t the only case where doubles play a large role in the narrative; one of the men investigating Ali’s case has a speech about feeling replaced by his ex’s new boyfriend, who has taken his place in his old home. And there’s also the question of the border around the area affected by the darkness. “You really think there’s a difference between this and that side?” Negar asks at one point—and it’s left ambiguous as to whether or not she’s speaking accurately.
A subplot about the Major, one of the other men investigating Saman’s possible death, also parallels the main plotline without echoing it. Gradually, we learn that he’s taking care of an ailing loved one as well, establishing a connection between his situation and that of the twins. In his case, the loved one is his wife, who’s been stricken by a disease that’s left her confined to her bed. Negar provides some useful information to him, and there’s a thoroughly dizzying payoff to this subplot that comes very late in the film. (No spoilers, but: it’s on the order of the final shot of Denis Villeneuve’s Enemy or the Winkies Diner scene from Mulholland Drive.)
Perhaps the most literal demonstration of the way Invasion parallels and distorts its structure comes when the first loop closes; we see Ali on one side of a mirror, but where there should be a perfect reflection there is instead something that doesn’t quite match up. If there’s one synecdoche for the film as a whole, that might be it right there. Though Mokri’s film also includes some other moments where the lines between the re-enactment and the day of Saman went missing turn porous; one scene in a locker room seems to dissolve the lines between past and present, right up until the point where the camera changes position and shows the investigators watching it all unfold.
In a lengthy interview found on Deaf Crocodile’s collection of four of Mokri’s films, the director speaks of the way Ali moves in and out of the narrative, citing both Brechtian ideas of theater and the Iranian theatrical tradition of ta’zieh. Here, too, Mokri has found a fascinating way to juxtapose multiple concepts that viewers wouldn’t necessarily associate with one another. For all that Invasion is a very moody, very serious film, there are also a few lines of dialogue that suggest Mokri’s fondness for science fiction and superheroes, as when Negar invokes both the TARDIS and the Scarlet Witch at various points. When it comes to the latter—which also comes up in the interview with the filmmaker—it’s probably worth noting that both twins in the film have silver hair, which is almost certainly a reference to the Scarlet Witch’s twin brother Quicksilver.
Mokri described Invasion as “the hardest film that I’ve ever worked on,” citing both the intricacy of the narrative and the challenges of making this film in the locations he used. It’s an absurdly heady film, to be sure, but it’s also deeply visceral, and the constantly moving camera gives it a sense of propulsion that never flags. It’s also surprisingly playful at times: one scene where Ali interacts with a man manipulating a model of the building he’s currently standing in takes a delightfully odd turn, and the aforementioned TARDIS reference is a welcome and unexpected tip of the hat. Invasion is a truly singular film, and the sort of sinuous narrative designed to spark endless debates. There’s really nothing else like it.
