Opponent – a searing, psychological immigrant drama

An Iranian immigrant in Sweden seeks solace in their national wrestling team in this riveting story of internal torture.

The choice to pack up your family and leave your home country for what you hope to be more hospitable climes is never an easy one. Nor does it negate any other traumas or anxieties you’re experiencing in life. Milad Alami’s second feature, Opponent, explores the idea of an Iranian man wrestling with his conscience as well as quite literally wrestling other men in the hope that his participation in a national team sport would help his application for asylum in Sweden.

Payman Maadi, an actor many will likely recognise as one of the leads from Asghar Farhadi’s A Separation, delivers a towering performance as Imam, a beefy, brusque if secretive father-of-two who is witnessed in the film’s opening scene clobbering a moustachioed man to near death. We then join him in his current, somewhat dismal situation in a pokey halfway house with his family, having discovered that he fled from Iran after being shopped to authorities for attending an anti-government rally. Aspersions were also cast on his sexuality and, by extension, his commitment to his wife and kids.

The film tells an immigration story with a twist, asking the viewer to judge whether Imam is at all sincere in wanting to help his family to set up a new life free from the shackles of an oppressive political regime, or instead wants to tussle with semi-naked men and enter into the ritzy bourgeois euro-lifestyle that comes with being a minor sports personality. The latter would, at least, allow him to be honest about any dormant desires he may be feeling while sat in this existential waiting room.

That said, Alami does not use the immigrant experience as a mechanism to tell a different story, instead packing in lots of background detail about the dehumanising process that comes with allowing a family to secure the personal safety that they crave. Yet some of the film takes place inside Imam’s head, and when he’s not embarrassedly glancing at the rippling torsos of his fellow wrestlers, he’s seeing fellow travellers losing the game they’ve put so much effort into winning. Sometimes, we’re even party to his fantasies, which makes for an even more heightened and dramatic viewing experience, particularly when we’re suddenly yanked back to the grim reality.

One element that feels somewhat contrived is how Imam is set on a path towards a match with the moustachioed rival that caused all this grief. It makes for a dramatic showdown, but it’s hard to accept that both men would feel comfortable duking it out in the name of gentlemanly sport. Elsewhere Imam’s wife Maryam (Marall Nasiri) brings him back to earth, and she is seen as the rational and empathetic part of the family: the one who might sacrifice a loving matrimonial bond in the name of their daughters, and son who’s on the way.

In the end, the film succeeds in never bowing to platitudes or becoming too heavy handed in both its critique of the characters and the situation. This isn’t a polemic, but a delicately wrought psycho-drama, and Imam’s eventual inability to make a firm decision regarding his fate makes for a much more interesting and insightful film than one which allowed for a simple, saccharine resolution.

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Published 11 Apr 2024