Death of Yazdgerd

Death of Yazdgerd
Directed by Bahram Beyzai
Screenplay by Bahram Beyzai
Based on Death of Yazdgerd (theater play)
Starring Susan Taslimi
Mehdi Hashemi
Mahmoud Behrouzian
Amin Tarokh
Karim Akbari Mobarakeh
Yasaman Arami
Music by Babak Bayat
Cinematography Mehrdad Fakhimi
Release dates
  • 1982 (1982)
Running time
120 min
Country Iran
Language Persian

Death of Yazdgerd (Persian: مرگ یزدگرد, Marg Yazdgerd) is a 1982 Iranian drama film by Bahram Beyzai based on the play of the same name.[1]

Plot

The story of the film is based on the murder of Yazdgerd III, the last emperor of Sasanian Persia, who while being hard pressed by the Arabs on his western flank, fled to Marv where he was slain by a miller in a mill, in which he had been taking refuge.

The film begins with the Zoroastrian high priest (magus) of the Persian Empire, accompanied by the imperial army commander entering the mill to trial the miller accused of murdering the emperor. The miller, his wife and his daughter, while trying to exculpate themselves, all express a different version of the same incident. As the story shifts, more questions come up than are answered.[2]

A central theme in the film is the social disaffection among the general population of Persia at the eve of the Arab Islamic conquests and inequality in the highly class-based society, in which the wealthy elite and the Magi had amassed a disproportionate amount of wealth that they owed to heavy taxation and the benefactions of the pious.

Book

The play was translated into English by Manuchehr Anvar and published in Tehran.[3] Another English translation is named Death of the King, published in Stories from the Rains of Love and Death: Four Plays from Iran in Canada.[4]

Cast

References

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