No One Knows About Persian Cats

This isn't a great film, but it is a fascinating subject it tackles, and is probably worth seeing even if it is not exactly enjoyable.
We are back on the same subject, questioning whether a worthy/good/interesting topic badly tackled should be given extra marks. The Iranian music scene, the oppression, the political situation, are a fascinating and curious milleu. Indeed, we do get a sense of this; of the underground rooms, the quiet, reticent movements against a painful superstructure. Some of the naturalism of the non-naturalistic cast works, and we do have some sweet moments among this youth nation.
Here though are the problems; the acting is stilted and rather poor, the script/subtitles are clunky and plot-explaining, unnecessary, and frankly pretty much ruin the film. The whole thing nearly becomes cheesy.
As far as the way it is shot, we have a few nice widescreen horizons of Tehran, though generally this is unexploited.
Another problem is that we are never really given the context, we don't really know what pressures, strains and community structures the horror of some of the situations occur in. The police never are quite given a proper role, we don't know what's acceptable and what's not. Fine if you live there, for the ignorant masses just confusing and rather self-centered.
To conclude, a fine subject not particularly well executed or handled.