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Daughters of the Sun(دختران خورشید)

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Iran · 2000
1h 32m
Director Maryam Shahriar
Starring Altinay Ghelich Taghani, Soghra Karimi, Zahra Mohammadi, Habib Haddad
Genre Drama

Amangol (Altinay Ghelich Taghani) is the eldest daughter in a poor rural family. To help support them, her head is shaven and begins work as a boy named Aman in an isolated carpet weaving shop. The girls who work there are beaten by the owner, as is Aman, toiling at the loom until their hands bleed. As a male apprentice, he supervises the girls and lives in the shop, locked in and isolated.

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50

The New York Times by Dave Kehr

With her shaved head and staring eyes, Aman actually looks as if she had been stripped entirely of her sexuality, like a Holocaust victim. What does seem certain is that a bootleg print of "Yentl" is still making its way through Iran's filmmaking underground, leaving a wide trail of influence behind it.

70

The A.V. Club by Keith Phipps

Never quite finds the rhythm of a great film, and it scores no points for subtlety by including a subplot about a horse breaking free of its master, but Shahriar displays a real gift for conveying Taghani's plight in all its grimness.

60

Village Voice by Laura Sinagra

The filmmaker achieves the desired sense of remoteness and claustrophobic doom, and though the story could be told more economically, her slow approach conveys the distended chronology that attends an indentured servitude resembling slavery.

70

Chicago Reader by Ted Shen

At times Shahriar succumbs to self-conscious poeticism, and her male characters are invariably thieves and oppressors, but the film draws a good deal of power from the passive anguish of the girl.

75

New York Post by V.A. Musetto

There’s little dialogue in this gem of a movie, but little is needed. Aman’s anguished face – which recalls Maria Falconetti in “The Passion of Joan of Arc” -- conveys all the information we need.

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