The Great Yawn of History (2024)

The Great Yawn of History

There have been many movies made about the pursuit of wealth and fame, but none less obfuscated in its treasure hunting than Aliyar Rasti’s first feature The Great Yawn of History. Two men from different religious backgrounds go on a mystifying journey to find a cave with gold coins hidden inside at least one man’s dream suggests this is true which eventually becomes an allegory for another kind of bounty hunt. If neither experiences anything like divination or even self-fulfilling prophecy, Rasti uses the archaic elements of fable to present a fractured portrait of contemporary morality.

Beitoallah (Mohammad Aghebati) has dreamed of coins located in a cave somewhere north of Iran, but his religion forbids him from removing them himself. Looking for an unbeliever, he prints want ads on the back of fake currency notes, and receives several responses. But really he can’t be honest about what the job is; therefore only those desperate enough to follow a stranger through the countryside for an unknown amount of time will need apply. Eventually he finds Shoja (Amirhossein Hosseini), who fits the bill. As they set out and aren’t successful after checking many caves, Shoja begins to question Beitoallah.

However, they run into some wily locals who deduce that they’re looking for something valuable; soon enough they’re joined by uninvited travel companions on a trip that starts feeling much more arduous than either bargained for. Beitoallah’s search to find an unbeliever is inherently the film’s funniest section: A montage depicts interviews during which his elliptical line of questioning ultimately leads him towards Shoja who we come to learn was abandoned by his parents and thusly children left behind become an apparent subtext that extends into Beitoallah aligning his “visions” with spirituality.’

Ultimately also being abandoned and led astray by a spiritual father, his ‘hiring’ of Shoja is comparable to the Jake Gyllenhaal/Riz Ahmed relationship in Nightcrawler (2014). While not malevolent or fraudulent, there’s still madness to his erratic circumstances, blindly stumbling from cave to cave. Shoja is essentially just an avatar along for the ride because he has no better options financially or religiously.

As their journey unfolds (they introduce themselves as eco-tourists to more suspicious locals) their banter also recalls the Corneliu Porumboiu comedy The Treasure (2015), in which two men tear up a backyard looking for buried riches. Like that film, discretion is key; curious parties begin following them like ambulance chasers and eventually obstruct their goal.

Ultimately logical points bring them together in The Great Yawn of History, but do not add up to interesting beginnings. Having directed two shorts and several music videos prior, it’s a surprisingly meditative outing for Rasti’s debut feature, also benefited by Soroush Alizadeh’s cinematography delivering on the visual promise of a suitably named cave.

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