Baran
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Movie Reviews of Baran
Movie Review: "Baran" Means "Rain"; Story of Tender Feeling Deftly Told
Summary: 5 Stars
Majid Majidi, director of "The Children of Heaven" (first Oscar-nominated film from Iran), gives us another heart-warming (and slightly poignant) film about "Baran" (meaning "Rain"). The film has a romantic taste in a subdued narrative, and perhaps a very immediate and political message. But like a lovable brother and sister in "Heaven," "Baran" is about the two people in Iran tenderly depicted by Majidi.The story starts with a young man Lateef working at a construction site somewhere in Iran. The work is hard, and many workers are actually not Iranian, but illegal immigirants from Afghanistan. The boss Memar (excellent Mohammad Amir Naji, father of the children in "Heaven") is in fact a good fellow, but doesn't (or cannot) give much wage to them. There, Lateef has been assigned a rather easy job, serving tea and bread because of his father.
But one day Lateef must start to work, this time a real one. For one of the workers of the place broke his leg, and a son of the injured, very small boy named Rahmat, replaces this guy who could be lazy until then. Sulky, discontent, Rahmat acts very nastily before this small boy ... until he finds a surprising secret about "Rahmat" who in fact is named "Baran."
The rest of the story should remain untold. The man begins to change his attitudes to this newcomer, silently protecting Baran and keeping the secret from the people around them. But what can he do? And how far can he go when he knows someday Baran and the family must go back to the country where the society is still very unstable? All those emotional changes happening in this man's heart are tactly dealt with Majidi's lyrical narrative, without being too sugary and sentimental.
I understand some people's complaint that this film (and Iranian films in general) is too slow-moving. And I think the latter half, which should have shown more of Baran, seems a bit overlong. The 90 minutes surely feel long even for me (though I have watched many films from that country). Still, the charms of the simple tale with rich details of the everyday life in Iran which the Western media rarely cover are irresitible.
Certainly it moves slow, but "Baran" presents us what a good cinema can do with its good visuals and sincere attitudes towards filmmaking and the people it pictures.
Those who are interested in Iran-Afghanistan relations should see "Kandahar" and "The Cyclist." The former in a sense follows the possible life of Baran, and the latter is a big hit in Iran about a most desperate bet done by an aged illegal immigrant from Afghanistan, who has to ride a bicycle through one whole week.
Movie Review: Good but Non-Political
Summary: 5 Stars
I am not sure exactly what political messages other reviewers got from Majidi's movies including Baran. There were no overt criticisms of how illegal Afghan workers were treated in Iran. Yes, they hid whenever the government inspectors showed up at their work place, and, yes, they could not rent a bed to sleep in at a run-down motel because they did not have an ID. But is that much different from how illegal immigrants are treated anywhere else in the world? How about the treatment of women in general? A slight hint I got was that women may not be allowed to work alongside men, but there was no outrageous mistreatment of women. The only thing that the Iranian government might be peeved about may be the fact that Majidi shows how much the poor struggle to make a living in the Iranian society, but there were no attempts by the director to attribute the conditions of the poor to the incompetence or wrongdoings of the government.Having said that, I do not believe the fact that Majidi's movies lack attacks against the Iranian establishment diminishes their greatness. They show such humanity that helped me put aside my prejudice against the Muslim societies in general and identify with both the women and the men in more ways than one. Majidi depicts the men and women of Iran, and of Islam, to be of kindness and good will, which I do not believe he manufactured by himself.
Among his three movies I have seen (I am hoping there are more), Baran is my personal favorite. First of all, there is a great amount of humor, and then there is the heart-breaking struggle each character goes through. I understand that some people found some parts of the movie a bit slow, but I argue that they were necessary to make us the audience understand how much it sucks to be poor, how moral even the most destitute can be, how lonely young Lateef feels, how much he longs to find a girlfriend, and how he changes from a self-centered, abnoxious little boy into a young man with great empathy and selflessness. I wish Majidi a long and productive life so that he will give us more great movies.
Movie Review: A calm movie ^_^
Summary: 5 Stars
One night when I was browsing around the video rental store, I found a movie, Baran, sitting there on the shelf, and I knew I just had to watch it! Since it was foreign, Baran intrigued me right away.This Iranian movie made by Majid Majidi has a very calm atmosphere that will suck the watcher right into the movie, almost as if he or she were actually in Tehran.
The story is about a seventeen-year-old Iranian named Lateef who works at a construction site in Tehran. He does the little jobs, like serve the workman tea, or buys the lunch for the work site that day. Suddenly, when an Afghan worker has an accident, his son, Rahmat fills in for his injured father's place. Lateef finds Rahmat annoying; he can't lift very heavy things very well, and is sometimes clumsy. Also, Rahmat is a better cook, which takes away from Lateef's job, and Lateef then has to do more construction work. The big twist of the movie is when Lateef finds out Rahmat's secret, which then changes their lives.
Baran is a very good movie; it has no guns, weapons, or political muck. It simply tells a believable story about two teenagers in modern Iran. While watching it, I found it sad how the Iranian government doesn't like Afghan refugees in their country. During the movie the construction team had to keep it quiet and lie about what nationality that some of the workers, like Rahmat's, were. Also, I think to understand the plot better, the viewer should know a little background information of Iran/Afghanistan. The biggest reason I like this movie (besides being so un-Hollywood) is the ending, which is when a big rainstorm came to Tehran. That is very poetic way to end a movie, since Baran means rain.
Movie Review: Majidi Does it Again!
Summary: 5 Stars
After two masterpieces, Children of Heaven and Children of Paradise, Majidi does it again, and creates yet another masterpiece with Baran. He is one of the most talented directors in any language or era, as he uses a cinematic language that on one hand reminds me a lot of the european greats like Bergman, Truffaut and DeSica.., yet on the other is a reflection of his culture and environment.The love and infatuation that the teenager Hossein feels for Baran is simple, innocent, and well..doomed. It had to be from the start..An Afghan refugee working on a building site to support her family after her father has an accident,concealing her identity as a result, and a working class and poor Iranian boy, who at the beginning of the film was the irresponsible joker, and whose life is totally transformed by his 'discovery' and love.
The genuis of Majidi, is that he films this story without sentimentality yet with great compassion and love for his characters,and with a camera work that is pure poetry.
There are many unforgettable scenes in Baran, but the one that haunted me the most was when Baran's secret is discovered by Hossein. The acting is great from the amateur leads, especially Baran who doesn't say a word in the whole film, but whose face speaks volume, acting worthy of top rewards!!
Iranian cinema in general and Majidi in particular have proven that cinema is a truly universal art, like music, it brings people together regardless of their cultures or faiths, like no other art form can.
Baran is a must buy for any cinema lover, a film full of colour, soul and dignity.
Movie Review: Majidi's Best
Summary: 5 Stars
This is my favorite of Majidi's movies. It combines the sweetness and gentleness of his Children of Heaven (1987)with an objective look at lower and lower middle class Iranian society, and the impact of the infusion of immigrant Afghani workers into that mix. It also shows, and this is probably going to be lost on the most Western viewers (it certainly was for me until I visited Majidi's website), some of the underlying tensions between Iranians of different backgrounds. Among the groups represented are Kurds, Azeris, and Lurs. One of the things that makes this film so touching is how the main character, Lateef, is transformed from a shirking, irresponsible and selfish young boy into a man through his love and sympathy for a young Afghani refugee, Baran. Although it may sound unusual that this love affair develops with perhaps no more than five or six words spoken between Baran and Lateef, what happens on screen seems completely understandable and convincing.
There is one extremely powerful and startling image that Majidi uses towards the end of the movie that represents the untranscendable social division between the two. That is the snapping of Baran's burkha over her head as she and Lateef part for the last time. Never has that particular symbol seemed so intrusive and unfair in a film to me before. This time it was not for any political or religious reasons. Rather it was especially cruel because it divided Baran from Lateef permanently.