New Times (L.A.) by Andy Klein
If the performances are the prime reason the film is as engaging as it is, it must also be said that Majidi's visual style seems far more sophisticated than in "Children of Heaven."
✭ ✭ ✭ ✭ Read critic reviews
Iran · 2001
Rated PG · 1h 30m
Director Majid Majidi
Starring Hossein Abedini, Zahra Bahrami, Mohammad Amir Naji, Hossein Mahjoub
Genre Drama, Romance
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In a building site in present-day Tehran, 17-year-old Lateef is given heavier tasks to compensate for new Afghan worker Rahmat. He resents his displacement and treats Rahmat cruelly. After one of his pranks, however, Lateef discovers Rahmat's secret... he is a girl named Baran.
New Times (L.A.) by Andy Klein
If the performances are the prime reason the film is as engaging as it is, it must also be said that Majidi's visual style seems far more sophisticated than in "Children of Heaven."
The New York Times by Dana Stevens
The lovely clarity of this story, which seems to have been drawn from the literature of an earlier age, is well served by the artful subtlety of the telling. Mr. Majidi prefers imagery to exposition, and his shots are as dense with meaning, and as readily accessible, as Dutch paintings.
Washington Post by Desson Thomson
As in Chaplin's films, humor and tragedy dance a wonderful tango throughout the movie. Baran is heartbreaking and laugh-out-loud funny, sometimes apart, sometimes together.
Simple, but loaded. It celebrates the humanity and humanism at the heart of Iran's remarkable flow of films, but it's also more of a rebuke to materialistic values than any ideologue could ever hope to be.
Charlotte Observer by Lawrence Toppman
The director lingers over images, watching builders at work or Baran at her chores; the camera often seems to daydream, like Lateef. No grand climax caps the film, but the small incidents have a cumulative effect.
Village Voice by Michael Atkinson
Remains simplistic and gimmicky in the context of Iranian cinema.
San Francisco Chronicle by Mick LaSalle
Can and should be appreciated as a work of delicate and unmistakable beauty.
New York Magazine (Vulture) by Peter Rainer
It's an elliptical tragedy in which the fate of its characters takes on a larger significance while never losing its intimacy.
Portland Oregonian by Shawn Levy
The film is filled with fascinating, static set-ups, beautiful but never fussy or artificial.
Despite its mawkish tendencies, the film is remarkable for the naturalistic acting of its cast, particularly the simple, tenderly expressive performances of the two leads.
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The story of a betrayed but unquenchable little Roman street-walker.
An orphan and a servant for a merchant family in Saigon, Mui witnesses all their darkest secrets, but never loses her childlike love for the world.
Each member of a family in Taipei asks hard questions about life's meaning as they face everyday dilemmas.
He defied death like a god... he succumbed to love as a man.
Simin wants to leave Iran to give her daughter, Termeh, a different kind of life outside the country. But Nader, Termeh’s father, refuses to leave his ailing father behind.
High schoolers Mitsuha and Taki are complete strangers living separate lives. But one night, they suddenly switch places.
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