Artist Comes Cackling Back to the Limelight

THE NEW YORK TIMES

BY MANOHLA DARGIS

It isn’t until late in “Fifi Howls From Happiness” that you learn the meaning of the cryptic title. Even so, you may soon intuit that there’s a strong link between the howling and the cackling that regularly erupts from the movie’s subject, the Iranian artist Bahman Mohassess. It’s an unnerving sound because of its wincingly harsh, broken resonance, but also because of the eerie juxtaposition created by the image of Mr. Mohassess’s cigarette smoke curling around his head, not far from a portable oxygen device. It’s hard not to think that he may be on a suicide mission, though this thoughtful, moving documentary does make you wonder if, after a lifetime of trouble, he’s just laughing at fate.

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