Empty Your Pockets

Iranian filmmaker Tara Aghdashloo’s layered, complex short Empty Your Pockets presents the story of Hassan (Kiarash Dadgar), and airport customs officer desperately trying to navigate a totalitarian system in which comedy and drama abound, amidst an underlying sense of great danger.

Hassan’s monotonous existence in the airport is coloured by an odd variety of passengers who he is responsible for processing. As he tries to make an honest living, he is aware of the dangers posed by the State he works for. When both opportunities and dangerous influences make their presence known, Hassan is left with a dilemma that tests both his daring and his morality.

Empty Your Pockets manages to capture the strangeness of living under autocracy – and strange dynamics that come with it that range from amusing, confusing and anxiety-inducing. The Persian-language short is unnerving in its tonal shifts throughout its short runtime – with Hassan confronted with scenarios that range from ludicrous to life-risking. It’s quite hard to nail down exactly what the film is – and this lucidity is an impressive accomplishment from Tara Aghdashloo, who wrote and directed the film to highlight the dilemmas of those living under totalitarian governments. Even with a badge on his chest, Hassan’s exposure to the actual workings of societies in such places is eye-opening to both the character and the audience watching them.

A humid, hazy filter hangs over proceedings – typical of Middle East-set movies but something that adds to the rising tension and discomfort that emerges from the plot. The Iran in which Hassan lives is a world in which its residents are trying to keep their heads down and get through the day, albeit for very different reasons. The responsibility of enforcing regulations falls on the main character, and those around him such as Qasemi (Toomaj Danesh Behzadi) or Bijan (Bahman Dadui) similarly navigate the labyrinth of security in the airport. The heady and uncomfortable atmosphere created by the visuals, mixed with the quietly sinister layers of bureaucracy mean that conflict feels inevitable.

Kiarash Dadgar brings Hassan to life as an authentic man with a sense of moral compass, in a world designed to test anyone with such qualities. Hassan is a man unprepared for the realities of his role. His efforts to maintain neutrality feel destined to conflict with the enforcement he is tasked with implementing. Aghdashloo cleverly presents him as someone without investment in either maintaining the letter of the law or for helping those evade it – but in trying to walk the line, Hassan’s own status is held in question. Dadgar’s maintenance of Hassan’s inner quarrel ties the narrative together.

Empty Your Pockets is an impressive short, focusing on one small piece of a totalitarian State’s apparatus and the people who get caught up in it. Tara Aghdashloo’s tying this into the personal journey of a likable protagonist shines a more powerful light onto the struggles of Iranians, and the futility and hypocrisy of the theocratic government that rule over them.