Description: Winner for Best Film at the Montreal Film Festival, this wonderfully romantic and uplifting story is from the acclaimed director of the Academy Award(R) nominee CHILDREN OF HEAVEN (Best Foreign Language Film, 1999). In a Tehran building site, a 17-year-old Iranian named Lateef is known more for his playful antics than his hard work. Then things take an unexpected turn when an Afghan coworker falls from the building and the worker's son, Rahmat, enters the scene to become the new provider for his family. But even as Lateef finds himself irresistibly drawn to Rahmat, it's not until the revelation of Rahmat's secret (that he is actually a young woman, posing as a man) that both of their lives are forever changed! A humorous and moving love story of the most romantic kind -- critics everywhere have declared this delightfully entertaining motion picture as one not to be missed!
Baran is a Lesson in What it Means to be Human. Iranian screenwriter-director Majid Majidi is best known for his 1998 film, Children of Heaven (Bacheha-ye Aseman). Shot in Tehran and set against the oppressive Taliban regime, his 2001 film, Baran (Rain), tells the simple story of Afghan refugees living in the refugee camps outside Tehran. Lateef is an Iranian construction worker who develops an unspoken romantic interest in Baran, an Afghan refugee. Disguised as a weak boy named Rahmat, Baran also works at the construction site to support her family. After Lateef discovers that Rahmat is actually a girl, he is transformed by their silent love, like a gentle rain on hardened earth. His hatred for doves evolves into compassion for them, and he sells his most valued possession to allow Rahmat and her family to return to Afghanistan.
Baran is a rare experience in cinema. It is permeated with astonishing beauty and compassion, which is exactly what makes it such a truly pleasurable experience. It is ultimately a subtle, heartfelt love story between two people within a rigid social structure in Iran, and a lesson in what it means to be truly human. Highly recommended.
G. Merritt
Comedic love story A young afgahan girls poses as man to get work to support her family meets a guy and the complications begin. Subtle and tender comedy as compassion and love unfold. A good telling of life in Iran and refugees from Afghanistan
Tender, heartbreaking film, just like life can be at times... Abbas Kiarostami is generally the face of Iranian cinema in cinema circles. While he is a great director, there is another master working in Iran, and his name is Majid Majidi. This is one of his most poetic, moving, understated, and quietly brilliant films. It is a unique love story dealing with Iran and Afgani refugees fleeing the Taliban and the civil war in their country. It shows the complexity of the situation in this region without resorting to boring political talk. A young teenage Iranian, who is really kind of a cock up, ends up falling in love with an Afgani refugee who is pretending to be a boy. She is working on a construction site so she can earn money for her family. The young man cannot (for religious reasons and also because he's the only one who knows the girl's real identity) show his love for this girl, and it leads to a very sad conclusion. This is a really remarkable film, told with grace and subtlety. Most, if not all, Iranian films I've seen have this other worldly, poetic quality to them. They are immensely poetic and humanistically told, without any violence, sex, or profane language. Someone commented on Children of Heaven, another masterpiece from Madiji, that people should watch films from Iran, so you can discover the other side of the country, rather than the mindless depiction the MSM gives you. This is a great film to start with.
a beautiful, nostalgic, helpless and sad love story this film is like a sad and melancholy poem, a well-woven persian tapestry. the human heart would never stop to seek love, no matter how helpless it might turn out. and one thing is never wrong: only love can change one man's way of thinking and the complete different way to look at things.
a masterpiece of subtlety! This is a superbly nuanced film and it gives me an idea, albeit sad, on the inhibitions imposed by the muslim culture: you cannot express your feelings of love openly. It's one highly recommended!
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