After sitting through this film, I have to wonder if the many accolades and awards this movie has received are a case of the Emperor's New Clothes; i.e., it's Iranian, so it must be good no matter what it really looks like.
The film plods along at an agonizingly slow pace. Many shots are several minutes in length with little movement. But instead of making a point, these scenes just feel as if the Director was trying to find a way to stretch out the film. (The filmaker's equivalent of using 14 point font on a term paper.) At one point a scene with significance for future scenes is shot from such a distance that the people are mere specks and you are left spending the next ten minutes trying to figure the major plot hole this long distance scene just created.
Nearly all the scenes amount to obvious, and vaguely preachy metaphors about the importance of voting. Instead of letting a scene speak for itself, the woman vote collector has to make some preachy statement every time. Even more grating, the soldier accompanying the vote collector speaks ever single line in a monotone as if he is reading his lines off a cue card.
This film is billed as a comedy, yet there is nothing remotely funny in the 100 minutes of the film.
Perhaps much of the humor and nuances of language are lost in a poor translation from Farsi. However, after seeing and being highly impressed by "Kandahar", I tend to think this is just not a good film.
Save your money and 100 minutes of your life for something more worthwhile than this film.
The film plods along at an agonizingly slow pace. Many shots are several minutes in length with little movement. But instead of making a point, these scenes just feel as if the Director was trying to find a way to stretch out the film. (The filmaker's equivalent of using 14 point font on a term paper.) At one point a scene with significance for future scenes is shot from such a distance that the people are mere specks and you are left spending the next ten minutes trying to figure the major plot hole this long distance scene just created.
Nearly all the scenes amount to obvious, and vaguely preachy metaphors about the importance of voting. Instead of letting a scene speak for itself, the woman vote collector has to make some preachy statement every time. Even more grating, the soldier accompanying the vote collector speaks ever single line in a monotone as if he is reading his lines off a cue card.
This film is billed as a comedy, yet there is nothing remotely funny in the 100 minutes of the film.
Perhaps much of the humor and nuances of language are lost in a poor translation from Farsi. However, after seeing and being highly impressed by "Kandahar", I tend to think this is just not a good film.
Save your money and 100 minutes of your life for something more worthwhile than this film.
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