The Neoformalist Analysis of “The Fateful Day”

Among the cinematic works centered around the event of Ashura, the movie The Fateful Day (1995) by Shahram Asadi is a thought-provoking cinematic work. This study aims to analyze the interaction between the narrative structure and the visual style of the film in creating different meanings using Christian Thompson’s neoformalist approach and David Bordwell’s theories on the narrative of the story-telling film. The research method applied in this research is descriptive content analysis. The narrative expansion in the form system of The Fateful Day follows the pattern of the unique myth and the pattern of Search. The use of stylistic and narrative creative devices in the film has resulted in the harmony of mise-en-scenes with the stage goals and the overall texture of the work. The originality in the narration and the stylistic elements of the movie The Fateful Day (among the Iranian historical religious cinematic works) is the result of the innovative cinematic devices used in the movie. The most important of such devices include the use of narrative and stylistic expansion patterns fitting the work’s theme, application of subplots in harmony with the main plot, numerous functions of repetitive motifs in the objective and narrative context, appropriate rhythm of the music and image, and creation of implicit meanings. According to the results of this research, in historical cinema with a thematic focus on religious events, the correct formation of dramatic situations related to their corresponding historical situations, as well as the coherence of the concepts arising from the objective and narrative context of the film with the basic ideologies presented in the work itself are very important.