Those Three

This first feature-length production from Iranian filmmaker Naghi Nemati serves up an austere and disturbing portrait of indefatigable (and frequently inexplicable) acts of self-determination, focusing on three mismatched conscripts at an army base in northern Iran. On their last day of basic training, Essi (Esmail Movahedi) decides that he would rather not pursue a military career, and abruptly walks away from the base, followed by his two buddies—Yousef (Yousef Yazdani) and Dariush (Dariush Ghazbani). But their journey into personal independence becomes a test of physical and emotional endurance when the trio become lost and stranded in a snowy wasteland, where the fraying relations between the men are compounded by the pressures of wind, snow, and freezing cold. Along the way, a pregnant woman who's been robbed and abandoned in the wilderness joins them. Those Three is a deeply provocative tale of human survival and the demands of friendship, benefiting from Houman Behmanesh's stunning cinematography, which brilliantly frames a desolate landscape that simultaneously liberates and imprisons the soldiers. Highly recommended. (P. Hall)