Opponent

Opponent, Milad Alami´s sophomore feature film, is an intense psychological drama dealing with masculinity, intimacy and violence.  The film follows Iman, a prominent Iranian wrestler, and his family who have been forced to flee Iran in the aftermath of a devastating rumor. As refugees, they end up in a run-down hotel in Northern Sweden. Despite feeling powerless, Iman tries to maintain his role as the family patriarch in a new culture. To increase their chances of asylum, he breaks a promise to his wife and joins the local wrestling club. As the rumours start to resurface, Iman’s fear and desperation begin to take a hold.

To portray Iman’s journey from Iran to Sweden, the composer duo decided to incorporate a mix of Nordic and Iranian instruments and blend those acoustic instruments with electronic elements:  “Being the first time for both of us working with Milad we quickly discovered that he’s not only a very talented director but also very open-minded and willing to let us try a somewhat left-field approach with the score. A lot of ideas came out of us two improvising on different synths, effects, and acoustic instruments laying around in the studio. Given the short timeline and the playful nature of making the score, we opted to play all instruments ourselves: cello, ​key harp, ​bass flute, baritone saxophone, clarinet, ​Ney-flutes, piano,​ ​mellotron, ​balalaika,​ etc. We took turns on all of them.”

This resulted into a very organic score with a certain human touch and vulnerability which works great with the overall theme and atmosphere of the film.