INSUBCONTINENT EXCLUSIVE:
TEHRAN – Stage director and actress Shiva Ordui, who is also a translator of literary compositions, has made her screen debut with a short
film based on Anton Chekhov’s short story “Misery”.The film entitled “Pause” has been written and co-produced by Ordui.Omid
Mohammadnejad, Raha Khodayari, Yasser Asghari, Ehsan Sadeqi, Parsa Arainejad, Mohammad Shami, Alireza Amani and Nirvana Yusefi star in the
A press release published on Thursday by “Pause” public relations gave no details about the story of the short movie. “Misery”
was first published in Peterburgskaya Gazeta’s No
26 issue on January 16, 1886
With minor changes, it appeared in the Motley Stories collection. In 1895, it made its way into an anthology called Probleski
In a slightly revised version, Chekhov included it into Volume 3 of his Collected Works published by Adolf Marks in 1899–1901.The short is
about the cabman Iona, whose son has recently died
He desperately and unsuccessfully tries to have a talk with the people he meets and tell them how shattered he is
He ends up talking to his horse.The story was positively reviewed by Peterburgskiye Vedomosti and N
Ladozhsky. Leonid Obolensky, writing for Russkoye Bogatstvo, praised Chekhov for his extraordinary ability to see the hidden drama behind
deceptively simple things, and cited “Misery” as a perfect example of that. In an 1887 essay called “The Writers of Our Times”,
Konstantin Arsenyev included “Misery” on his list of the best contemporary short stories. Leo Tolstoy included “Misery” into his
personal list of Chekhov’s best stories.Photo: A scene from the short film “Pause” by Shiva Ordui. MMS/YAW
