Voices of Bam

In Bam they know a lot about death and loss. In December 2003, an earthquake destroyed this southern Iranian city killing 30% of the population. This extraordinary documentary by a team of Dutch filmmakers quietly and poignantly captures the way people are trying to rebuild both their interior and exterior worlds. It grew out of a project to reunite families with still photographs found in the rubble. These photos of inconsequential family moments are the most tangible objects people have on which to build memories, small fixed moments in a time which has been thrown radically out of joint. Images of rebuilding and of life in the rubble are accompanied by the voices of survivors as they quietly try to decipher God’s hand in this calamity. One sequence interweaves these voices with random movement on the streets, suggesting that everyday life is now full of conversations with the dead. A man’s account of the death of his wife and daughters is too painful to be accompanied by an image. We see a black screen and only see the photo of two young girls after the memory has been narrated.

When I was in Bam I met a man who was lost his wife and two daughters and he had only their picture, which was hanging on the wall. He was talking to them everyday. I asked him if he would do it out loud in front of me. He accepted because he loved to talk to his dead. I think Iranians have a very strong and incredible imagination.

Aliona van der Horst