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The movie is about maturing of the character Lateef and his silent romantic
affair with an Afghan refugee, Baran, in the construction site where he works.
It is necessary to describe the work force at the site to fully appreciate the
movie. At the point the story is told, in 2001, there are many Afghan refugees
in Iran due to the war with Russia and also due to the oppressive regime of
Taliban. There are many Afghan refugees working at the site for far less wages
than the Iranian workers. In Iran, the Afghan refugees are not allowed to stay
anywhere except the refugee camps unless authorized and hence the Afghan
workers need to travel everyday from the camp to the work site. The Afghan
refugees also need authorization cards to work in the country but it is
difficult to obtain. Hence many of the Afghans are working illegally which is
depicted in the movie.
Lateef, who is an Iranian, is having an easy time at the construction site with
the job of making tea and lunch. He always seems to be making witty remarks
which are not taken by some of the other characters in a similar manner,
especially Faraj (who is ethnically Azeris while Lateef is a Kurd). He is also
shown to be very careful with his money and saves all of the pocket money he
gets. He is also shown to be intolerant towards doves. One day when Lateef
comes to work he finds one of the Afghan workers, Najaf, has been injured and
is being taken to the hospital. The next day, Najaf sends his son - Rahmat - to
work, since he is unable to work with a broken leg and he has many children to
take care of. Rahmat is a weakling and is unable to do to the heavy manual work
at the construction site. Hence, the contractor, Memar, allocates Lateef's easy
job to Rahmat and Lateef has to help with the construction of the
building.
Lateef is sore about losing his comfy job and continuously torments Rahmat
until he learns by accident that Rahmat is actually a girl. He is really sorry
about his early acts and vehemently tries to be protective about Rahmat at the
work site, trying to save her from Faraj and the inspectors. Memar is forced to
lay off all his Afghan workers after an unfortunate incident and Lateef takes a
leave to find out where Rahmat stays. There are many beautiful shots during his
relentless attempts to find his love. He learns to be tolerant about doves and
starts feeding the doves. He tries to give money to Rahmat's family to save
them from their difficult times but it leads to Najaf's friend Sulton going
back Afghanistan. Lateef then sells his only possession, the authorization card
to give Rahmat's family enough money to go back to Afghanistan (meanwhile he
learns that Rahmat's real name is Baran). In the last scene, we see Lateef
helping Najaf and Baran with the loading of their rented truck to Afghanistan.
We can see the couple almost acknowledging their love through the rigid social
structure in Iran. Baran, which literally translates to rain, falls while Baran
leaves to Afghanistan.
Baran is based on a book by the same name, though written in
Persian.
A Miramax film. In Farsi with yellow English subtitles. 96 minutes.
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