The New York Times by Dave Kehr
If Mr. Ghobadi's dominant theme is the devastation of the Kurds, his subdominant tone is one of strength, resistance and fertility.
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Iran · 2002
1h 48m
Director Bahman Ghobadi
Starring Shahab Ebrahimi, Rojan Hosseini, Saeed Mohammadi, AllahMorad Rashtiani
Genre Drama, War
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During the war between Iran and Iraq, an old Iranian Kurd singer, accompanied by his musician sons, set off on an almost impossible mission to try to find his ex-wife Hanareh, a singer with a magic voice who crossed the border and may now be in danger in Iraqi Kurdistan.
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The New York Times by Dave Kehr
If Mr. Ghobadi's dominant theme is the devastation of the Kurds, his subdominant tone is one of strength, resistance and fertility.
New York Daily News by Elizabeth Weitzman
It's part grim Beckett-like drama, part joyous picaresque, and all quite mesmerizing.
As full of joy as pain, it's a perspective we need to see more often.
San Francisco Chronicle by Jonathan Curiel
Ghobadi infuses his movie with a humor that can almost be called Seinfeldian, and it's this mix of laughter with tears that gives Marooned in Iraq its big impact.
On a miniscule budget, Ghobadi conveys the terror of war, while the beautifully edited sequence in which Iranian villagers make bricks resembles nothing so much as a choreographed dance number.
Los Angeles Times by Kevin Thomas
Even though the film's tone grows ever more elegiac, it stubbornly remains a celebration of the Kurdish capacity to endure.
Entertainment Weekly by Lisa Schwarzbaum
Nothing I've read about Iraq or seen on TV in the past few weeks has felt nearly as real and intimate as this commanding fiction.
You'll have to seek it out in its limited release, but no current movie is more worth the effort.
Ends with horrific revelations that are made all the more powerful by the lightness that precedes them. Simultaneously sad and hopeful, Ghobadi suggests the resiliency of a culture in which war is part of the fabric of everyday life.
Eventually turns somber, with stark depiction of mass graves and suffering refugees. The final scene will break your heart.
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