Fifteen-year-old Saber works with an Iranian crew at a run-down scrap metal workshop owned by Mr. Sabahi. Alongside Afghans, Saber also constructs wheelbarrows, buckets, and basins for the construction sector, although the Afghans only make half of what the locals do and don’t have any proper working documentation. Additionally, in the event of any police inspections, these workers are required to take their children and tools and hide in a drainage pipe submerged to their knees in water.
Mr. Sabahi, who has helped raise Saber, allows many Afghans from the same family clan to construct makeshift dwellings on the site, enabling them to live in the place where they work. Most of the Afghan men embrace Saber and take him to their festivities, where Saber also lives.
But it is doubtful that the Afghans would think so positively of Saber had they known that he and the orphaned Marona (the brave non-mainstream Hassiba Ebrahimi) were in the middle of a courtship that was chaste yet quite romantic. The couple seems to meet each day, dropping out of sight into a rest ship container sitting rusty in the cargo yard next door where they can exchange gifts, share secrets, and make plans for the future. What worries Marona is what will happen if Saber tries to ask her gloomy sick father Abdolsalam (Nader Fallah) for her hand in marriage.
To avoid reiterating the same arguments, Mahmoudi’s screenplay clearly demonstrates the (at best) secondary status Afghans have in Iran and how this situation is painfully humiliating to them. For a large percentage, these circumstances were created by war where they had to emigrate and lose family members along with their belongings, their sense of dignity is the only thing that is left and their women folk are what gives them honor. Nevertheless, some context would be appropriate for audiences unfamiliar with the region which is: Iran currently has nearly 3 million Afghan migrants but only a fraction of that number is registered and employed. Almost a quarter of a million were deported in the last year available.
After graduating from the University of the Arts in Tehran, Mahmoudi’s initial attempts at filmmaking included directing TV shows and short films produced by his brother. Here, filming at a real site where Afghan refugees are living and working, he has an energetic, forceful way of directing a mixed group of thespians and non-actors that makes the filthy, dusty environment match the squalid setting in Slumdog Millionaire, with a vividness that is unique to him.
Soheili, an amiable television actor, has no trouble performing younger than he actually is, convincingly playing a rather naive young man in the throes of first love who is emotionally deaf and numb to the more profound feelings of his elders. Among the impressive craft credits, standing out is the work of Morteza Ghafouri, whose lensing, coupled with the agile prowling camera, captures the constricted worlds of the characters with each shot. The superb sound design and wistful score also deserve particular mention.
To watch more movies visit Fmovies
Also Watch for more movies like:
