Persian Lessons (Russian: Уроки фарси, German: Persischstunden, Persian: درس های فارسی) is a 2020 German-Russian-Belarusian historicaldrama film directed by Vadim Perelman. The film was partially inspired by the short story Erfindung einer Sprache by German writer Wolfgang Kohlhaase.
It was selected as the Belarusian entry for the Best International Feature Film at the 93rd Academy Awards. However, the film was disqualified by the Academy, due to the majority of those involved not coming from Belarus.
Plot
To avoid being shot like the rest of the truckload of Jews travelling through France, Gilles, a Belgian Jew who speaks French and German, tells the German soldiers he is Persian, having acquired a Persian book, despite having no knowledge of the Persian language. They bring him to a nearby concentration camp where Koch, the deputy commandant, asks to be taught the Persian language. Calling himself Reza, Gilles works for Koch in the kitchen, and invents "Persian" words to fool Koch and stay alive.
Koch hopes to learn 2,000 words in two years. He intends to visit Tehran after the war to start a restaurant. Section Leader Max warns Koch that Reza is lying about being Persian.
Koch tests Reza by giving him 40 words to translate, but no pencil. Reza must come to his office later and Koch will write them down. This task seems impossible, so Reza escapes the camp when taking out slop from the kitchen, and encounters a French man in a wood who advises him to return, which he does. Koch orders Reza to neatly copy into a ledger a list of newly arrived prisoners, omitting crossed out names as those died en route. Reza sees a way of using the ledger as a mnemonic to remember the 40 invented "Persian" words, using sections of the names of the dead. This works: he can recite all 40 words without the list as he still has the ledger in front of him.
Reza is beaten by Koch when he mistakenly gives the same word two meanings. Reza is sent to hard labour breaking rocks. Reza collapses and recovers in the camp hospital.
Other officers complain of Koch's behaviour and want Elsa, one of the female guards, reinstated as book-keeper. While Reza is sent to labour at a farm, Elsa does the book-keeping. Koch must explain his behaviour to Commandant Beyer. He says he knows who is spreading rumours that the commandant has a small penis. Suspecting Elsa of the small-penis rumours, Beyer sends her to the Russian front.
Reza takes food to a deaf Italian man he saw beaten earlier. The man's grateful brother says he will protect Reza. Max discovers a prisoner who may reveal Reza's deceitfulness, but the Italian brother kills this man and is in turn killed by Max.
Koch learns that Reza has joined a consignment of prisoners walking to the train station to be conveyed to a death camp. Koch rushes to rescue him. Soon afterward, Commandant Beyer learns that the American Army is approaching and orders his officers to destroy all records and execute the remaining prisoners. Koch marches Reza on his own out of the camp and Max reports this fact to Beyer but he takes no interest and dismisses Max.
Deep in the surrounding woods, Koch frees Reza, intending to travel alone to Iran. In Tehran, Iranian customs officials do not understand Koch's "Persian" speech and he is arrested.
Escaping to the American lines, Gilles is questioned by officers about the concentration camp. He recites the full names of 2,840 people—the names he memorised from the ledger.
The script of the film was first written in Russian, and then translated into English and eventually German. The fake version of Persian spoken in the film was invented by a Russian philologist at Moscow State University, who based the vocabulary on the real names of documented victims of the Holocaust.
Release
Persian Lessons premiered at the Berlin International Film Festival on 22 February 2020. It was theatrically released in Germany by Alamode Film on 24 September 2020. The film was released in China on 19 March 2021.
Reception
Critical response
On the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, 79% of 47 critics' reviews are positive, with an average rating of 6.6/10. The website's consensus reads: "Persian Lessons is somewhat dramatically contrived, but it remains an effectively tense drama that's elevated by Nahuel Pérez Biscayart's performance." Metacritic assigned the film a weighted average score of 53 out of 100, based on 7 critics, indicating "mixed or average reviews".
