Texture in cinema is one of the most fundamental aesthetic components, playing a pivotal role in shaping the viewer's perceptual, sensory, and emotional experience. Unlike visual arts, where texture primarily refers to surface quality and material substance, in cinema this concept has acquired a considerably broader scope, encompassing the interaction of visual, auditory, narrative, temporal, and even ideological elements. All films have texture; however, this texture is not merely a function of the material quality of the image, but pertains to the manner in which various elements are organized, combined, and interwoven into a coherent whole that constitutes the viewer's aesthetic experience. In contemporary cinema studies, three key concepts contribute to a deeper understanding of texture: Materiality, which refers to the physical and sensory aspects of film and emphasizes the embodied experience of the audience; Grain, which denotes the physical and random texture resulting from silver particles in analog films, imparting a visual and tactile quality to the image; and Fabric, which operates on two levels: on the concrete level, it signifies fabrics and textiles used in mise-en-scène and production design, and on the abstract level, it serves as a metaphor for the overall and intertwined structure of the film.

Despite this fundamental importance, a review of the research background in Iranian cinema reveals that the concept of "structural texture" has not yet been systematically and independently studied. As far as the researcher has investigated, no dissertation, book, or article specifically dedicated to the analysis of structural texture in Iranian cinematic films was found. This research gap underscores the necessity of developing a theoretical and operational framework for analyzing texture in Iranian cinema. Although a study focusing on animation and titled "Investigating the Application and Importance of Structural Texture in Animation" has been conducted, that research focused on animation and aimed to explain the importance of texture in animation production and narration, whereas the present study seeks to conduct an aesthetic analysis of texture in cinematic film and propose a structural model for film criticism. Therefore, the current research is considered the first scholarly study in the field of Iranian cinema that directly and systematically addresses the subject of "structural texture" in film.

The main objective of the present study is to fill this theoretical and analytical gap in Persian cinema studies. This research seeks to utilize Lucy Fife Donaldson's theory of "structural texture" and, by adding the complementary concepts of Materiality, Grain, and Fabric, to provide an operational model for analyzing texture in film and to apply this model to a prominent example of Iranian poetic cinema. The study seeks to answer the main research question: "How is structural texture formed in cinematic film, and based on Donaldson's model, what is the relationship between material and semantic elements in creating the aesthetic experience?" Two sub-questions are also posed: "What are the main components of texture in the horizontal and vertical axes in the film Mother?" and "How does the interaction of these components lead to the creation of a sense of nostalgia and generational conflict in the film?" Based on the theoretical foundations, the research question (instead of a hypothesis in qualitative research) is formulated as follows: it appears that the texture of the film Mother is the result of a systematic interaction between temporal-performative elements (on the horizontal axis) and semantic-ideological elements (on the vertical axis), and this interaction has created a multi-layered texture full of a sense of nostalgia, loss, and generational rupture, which reaches the viewer's perceptual experience through material qualities (such as Materiality, Grain, and fabrics) and structural qualities (such as patterns of repetition and emotional rhythm).

The theoretical framework of the research is based on Donaldson's model, which, inspired by the weaving metaphor of warp and weft, conceptualizes filmic structure along two principal axes: the horizontal or weft axis (syntagmatic), encompassing linear, temporal, and performative elements such as narrative, editing, sound, music, mood, and genre; and the vertical or warp axis (paradigmatic), encompassing thematic and semantic elements such as mise-en-scène (with technique integrated into it), characters, tone, performance, dialogue, ideology, and style. The present study is accompanied by a critique of Donaldson's model (particularly the conceptual overlap between technique and mise-en-scène) and offers a revised model in which technique is integrated into mise-en-scène and the boundaries of the two axes are redefined based on a clearer criterion (temporal-performative versus semantic-thematic). Additionally, the concepts of Materiality, Grain, and Fabric have been added as complementary components to the model.

The research method is qualitative, of the directed content analysis type, which, using a researcher-made checklist based on the components of the two axes, has recorded and coded the visual, auditory, and narrative elements of the film. The theoretical approach of the research is a synthesis of Saussure an semiotics (emphasizing the syntagmatic and paradigmatic axes) and perceptual aesthetics, operationalized within the framework of Donaldson's structural texture model. The primary unit of analysis is the scene, and in cases where audio elements or mise-en-scène details were of particular importance, the shot or dialogue was also considered as a unit of analysis. The film Mother (1989) directed by Ali Hatami was purposefully selected as the analytical sample due to its deep and organic connection between visual, auditory, and narrative elements, as well as its high capacity for representing semantic and ideological layers. The researcher viewed the film in six sessions and analyzed the resulting data qualitatively-inferentially. To increase the validity of the findings, triangulation at the level of sources (theoretical texts, existing critiques of the film, and interviews with Ali Hatami) was employed.

The findings of the research indicate that the texture of the film Mother is the simultaneous result of three levels of decision-making: the material level (technological-sensory), encompassing the physical and material qualities of the film, including Grain resulting from the nature of celluloid, the Materiality of objects and spaces, and the role of fabrics and textiles (Fabric) in atmosphere creation and characterization; the structural level (formal-expressive), encompassing the syntagmatic arrangement of temporal and performative elements on the horizontal axis (narrative, editing, sound, music, mood, genre) that creates the perceptual quality and coherence of the work; and the semantic level (cultural-ideological), encompassing conceptual and meaning-making choices on the vertical axis (mise-en-scène with technique integrated, characters, tone, performance, dialogue, ideology, style) that determine the meaning and worldview of the film. The analysis of the film reveals that on the horizontal axis, the linear-emotional narrative, soft and poetic editing, symbolic sounds (the sound of the clock and rain), recurring music with the main theme, a mood combining bittersweet melancholy and gentle humor, and the hybrid genre of family melodrama with poetic realism have created a calm and emotional rhythm that immerses the viewer in an experience of "emotional time." On the vertical axis, the metaphorical mise-en-scène emphasizing the old house, closed frames, warm light, earthy colors, and the concepts of Materiality, Grain, and Fabric (handwoven fabrics of the mother's clothing, the grain of the image in low-light scenes, the texture of mud-brick walls); the cultural character archetypes of the mother (tradition), Jamal al-Din (modernity), and Arab (mediator); the tone shifting from gentle humor to poetic sorrow; introverted performance with lingering gazes and minimal gestures; poetic and metaphorical dialogues with archaic language; the ideology emphasizing a return to roots; and Hatami's unique style with warm lighting, minimal camera movement, and the use of literary language from the Qajar era—all together construct deep semantic layers that artistically represent the sense of loss, nostalgia, and generational conflict. This dual interaction ultimately leads to the creation of a multi-layered texture full of poetic sensibility, making it a distinguished example of nostalgic and ethical cinema in Iranian cinema.

Finally, by presenting a dual-axis model (horizontal/weft and vertical/warp) for analyzing texture in film, the research provides an operational framework for researchers and film critics that enables the simultaneous study of material and semantic, technical and ideological, sensory and structural aspects of cinematic works. This model, which has been revised based on critiques of Donaldson's model (integrating technique into mise-en-scène and more clearly distinguishing sound from dialogue) and supplemented with the concepts of Materiality, Grain, and Fabric, can serve as an effective tool in film aesthetics and structural criticism of Iranian cinema. The results indicate that despite the analytical efficacy of Donaldson's model, his categorization requires revision, and the revised model presented in this research is more compatible with the structure of Iranian cinema and can serve as a foundation for comparative and typological studies in the future, opening new horizons in the study of the relationship between form, meaning, and perception in cinema. In other words, "film texture" is the result of a balance between form and meaning, technology and sensation, and aesthetics and culture, and understanding this balance requires an analytical framework that simultaneously attends to the material, structural, and semantic dimensions of the work a framework that this research has sought to provide.