CRIMSON GOLD

(three stars)

Slow but moving tragedy.

In Farsi, with English subtitles. Running time: 97 minutes. Not rated (nothing offensive). At the Quad and the Lincoln Plaza.

‘CRIMSON Gold” has been likened to an Iranian “Taxi Driver,” but it’s nothing of the sort, though it is powerful in a quiet, minimalist way.

Slow-paced, performed by non-professional actors, and photographed by a generally static camera, “Crimson Gold” is fascinating as much for its depiction of life in Tehran as for the central character’s descent into tragic violence.

And like so much of the superb Iranian cinema that reaches our shores, “Crimson Gold” is shot through with a profoundly humane concern for the lives and dignity of ordinary people.

But “Crimson Gold” does something new: it offers a rare glimpse into the lives of the Iranian wealthy. And it does so in the service of a surprisingly bleak, radically class-conscious vision of Iranian life.

As a result of this, and some oblique references to the time before the revolution, it has been banned in the country where it was made.

Written by celebrated director Abbas Kiarostami, “Crimson Gold” tells in circular fashion the story of a murderous botched jewelry heist by an alienated pizza delivery man.

Thirtysomething Hossein (Hossein Emadeddin, a real-life pizza deliveryman) is a big, stolid, humble and seemingly depressed fellow (apparently damaged by his experience in the Iran-Iraq war, though much in this film is left to inference).

Though Hossein’s work takes him into fancy neighborhoods and swank apartment buildings that would not be out of place in Manhattan, his Tehran is a cold, harsh place where the police lie in wait for partygoers, homeless men steal from accident victims, upscale retailers condescend to ordinary folk, and even the wealthy seem miserable.

It’s not surprising that the Iranian regime took such exception to this picture, but it’s unfortunate that Iranians will be deprived of it.