BARAN (FARSI) (2001)

The story is set in contemporary Iran which plays an unwanted host to millions of Afghan refugees who've fled their homeland to escape the atrocities of a rising Taliban. The protagonist here is Lateef, an Iranian construction worker in his late teens. He works at the construction site supervised by Memar who is a friend of his dad. This puts him in a privileged position of light labour involving purchase of groceries, managing the site kitchen and serving tea to the workers. He is lazy, selfish, haughty and hot-headed. The site also employs several Afghans who do the heavy lifting, albeit for much lower pay, thanks to laws which forbid employing Afghan refugees.

Early into the movie, we get to know that Najaf, an Afghan worker at the site, has met with an accident and has broken his leg which leaves him unable to continue working at the site. However, Najaf is the only earning member of his family and his income from the site is absolutely essential to support his five kids. The next day, Soltan, a fellow Afghan worker at the site, brings along a young kid and introduces him as Rahmat, Najaf's son and requests Memar to allow the kid to work in place of the injured Najaf. Though Memar is skeptical about the apparently slender Rahmat's capacity to cope with the hard labour at the site, he eventually agrees to test him out. When Memar's initial doubts are confirmed by Rahmat's inability to cope with rigours of the work, he swaps the tasks of Rahmat with Lateef. Lateef is frustrated with this turn of events and sees Rahmat as the source of his misery. He makes several attempts to get back at Rahmat with little effect. One day, Lateef accidentally discovers that Rahmat is actually a girl in the guise of a boy and it is her pressing need to support her family after Najaf's accident which has forced her to resort to such desperate means. This realisation brings a paradigm shift in the mindset of Lateef and thus, begins a transformation which sees his persona turn into one filled with compassion, altruism and above all LOVE ! The rest of the movie captures this transformation in all its poetic splendour and is best experienced by the viewer in person.

Baran means Rain in Farsi and it is no coincidence that the female lead is also named Baran (which we get to know towards the end of the movie). She doesn't utter a single word in the entire course of the movie. Yet, it is her silences, punctuated by her pregnant gazes, an almost not-there smile and even a footprint of her shoe being filled by the downpour captured beautifully in the final moments of the movie, which convey volumes that the best written words would've failed to convey.

Baran is a movie that works at many levels. At the most apparent level, it paints an exquisite portrait of a tender romance through the most subtle of brush strokes. At another level, it is a coming-of-age tale where we witness the gentle blooming of a beautiful persona rich in empathy, compassion, sacrifice and love from what was once a coarse and gritty seed which was  self-serving, vain and egotistical. I find the transformation of the protagonist here resonates significantly with similar changes in Pieta (Korean) and Tsotsi (Afrikaans) (both reviewed earlier). As in the other two, once again, a tender love is what heralds the beautiful transformation here.

At yet another level, this movie captures the plight of the refugees effectively even as it brings out the difficulties confronting a forced host. I found, Memar, the site supervisor here also represents the dilemma of country like Iran which is forced to bear the burden of millions of refugees even as it struggles to cope with its own problems which are by no measure, small. Memar may be a hard taskmaster and also pays the Afghan refugees lesser pay than their Persian counterparts. But he is also empathetic to them and recognises that their hard work deserves much more, which he cannot pay for he is  constrained by his own resources as well as the law which forbids employing any refugees.

The director Majid Majidi is a noted filmmaker from Iran and has captured the movie with a minimalist colour palette which is in complete harmony with a movie pregnant with several subtleties.

Halfway through the movie, a cobbler makes the following philosophical observation for the protagonist's (& perhaps for us too) RUMI(?)nation -

"From the hot fire of being apart, 
Comes the flame that burns the heart."

This meditative movie is at once, very real, poignant, lyrical, bittersweet and a deeply personal experience.

This movie, in the best traditions of meditative practices, gradually grows on the viewer only to strike deep roots and lingers on for a very long time after the viewing. 

BRILLIANT .. MUST WATCH !!




P.S. - You can catch this movie on UTV WORLD MOVIES channel where it is telecast regularly.