Baran

Lateef, a cheeky young Iranian, takes round the tea in a huge building site in Tehran. Several illegal Afghani refugees work there too, but they are exploited even more than the Iranians and have to hide when the foreman comes round. When one of the Afghanis falls off some scaffolding and breaks his leg he is in despair: he is breadwinner, and without an income his family is in danger of starving. The foreman offers to employ the man’s eldest son. The son, Rahmat, bravely takes on the challenge, but he is not really strong enough to take over his father’s work. Lateef, in the meantime, hates the Afghanis. This hatred grows when Rahmat takes over his job, as a result of which Lateef has to do harder work. But then he gets to know a very different side of Rahmat.After Children of Heaven and Colour of Paradise, Majidi has made a more realistic film with Baran. Even though the film touches on the problem of Afghani refugees, this is not a political film: Baran is a lighthearted film, at some moments almost a romantic comedy. While the film is largely shot at a dirty and dusty building site with poor building labourers, the mood is warm. With an artistic and well timed use of sunlight, Majidi manages to achieve stunning effects. An accessible and universal film about love.