Fire Bokser - Four Boxes

FIRE BOKSER
Bahram Beyzaii’s Four Boxes (1979), ‎0‎‏//.-و+:‏Persian‏)‏ ‏($####"!ر is one
of the Beyzaii’s more directly allegorical works about social and
political realities governed by fascism and is a study of how a
society manufactures its own dictators. Four characters appear on
stage as four colors: yellow, green, red, and black, symbolizing
intellectuals, clergy, merchants, and laborers respectively. At the
beginning, in order to safeguard the interests of his own class, each
contributes to the making of a scarecrow as guardian against some
unknown external threat. Soon, however, the figurehead comes to
life and becomes an autocratic depot that rules by the motto Divide
and Conquer. The scarecrow breaks their alliance, and forces them
to build four boxes, in which each is confined. This confinement is,
however, self-imposed. Each character is more afraid of the others
than of the despotic scarecrow. What we see in Four Boxes is what
we are faced to see in our real life. In Four Boxes, seriousness is a
form of joke, jest and fun, and its jest is also a form of seriousness.
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