Baran

Majid Majidi's film festival award-winning Baran offers a glimpse into the heart of Iran rarely seen on the evening news. Latif is a teenager who serves tea and is the gofer for the workers at a construction site. When an Afghan laborer (one of the 1.5 million refugees who fled their country in the wake of the Soviet invasion, a title card informs us) is injured and his son, Rahmat, takes his place, it turns out that the slight Rahmet cannot do any heavy lifting, and he's therefore given Latif's job. Latif resents Rahmet until he discovers that Rahmet is actually a girl named Baran (played by a non-professional who did grow up in refugee camps). Ultimately, the callow youth falls in love with her, and becomes her self-sacrificing protector while guarding her secret. This haunting coming-of-age drama movingly charts Latif's convincing transformation, while making subtle political points, and like Majidi's earlier films Children of Heaven and The Color of Paradise is at once accessible and eye-opening. Highly recommended. (K. Lee Benson)