Displacement and transitions: the state of in-between-ness and displacement within interior architectural spaces in the films of Iranian filmmaker Sohrab Shahid-Saless

This paper focuses on the staircase and the corridor in films domestic interior architectural spaces as forms of transitory space—a kind of ‟inbetweenness” and displacement—with special reference to the films of a filmmaker who has experienced ‟in-betweenness” and displacement. Using extracts from some of his films, it explores the ways in which these particular types of spaces can be studied as temporary states of being and becoming. Shahid-Saless masterfully uses corridors and staircases in his long-duration films to create pauses and temporary moments that serve as to shift from one uncomfortable scene to another in his explorations of loneliness, sadness, frustration, depression. and anxiety. It explores the ways in which he uses camera as eye witness; sometimes down a staircase or up and down a corridor and considers the centrality of these spaces to intense observations of displaced characters as they embrace their problems, and intensity that grows from scene to scene. The films from which the excerpts are selected are all from Shahid-Saless‘ films: Time of Maturity (1976), Order (1982) and Utopia (1983), thus present the corridor and the staircase as elements of the domestic interior that create from one uncomfortable/miserable moment to the next.