Opening with semi-documentary footage of the bustling streets of Tehran and highlighting the city’s assortment of Western, luxury-brand cars, Armenian-born Samuel Khachikian’s Chahar-rahe havades (US: The Crossroad of Events) warns against materialism and greed, as so many of his films do, through the story of an ambitious, young man tempted into the criminal life to attain the financial security that his pre-Revolution culture (and the girl of his dreams) seems to require of him. Future Iranian superstar Nasser Malek Moti’e plays Farid, a factory worker who joins a gang of thieves, first for a simple smash-and-grab, then for an organized heist of a jewelry store. Abandoned by his accomplices when the police arrive, Farid must flee across rooftops and down fire escapes until finding shelter with a young woman (Vida Ghahremani) who risks her life to follow her heart. Known for an almost chaotic visual and aural aesthetic, Khachikian employs a wide variety of camera angles, often tilted to intensify action, and a dominant expressionist mode where darkness is the norm and lights often flash in sudden bursts. For visual variety, earlier scenes take place on a rock formation in front of a vista of the Alborz mountains, while later in the film the subjects of painted portraits appear to come to life in a dreamy haze.