There's a rumor that the people who run the Montreal World Film Festival are thinking of changing the name of their annual celebration to the Majid Majidi International Film Festival.  Why shouldn't they?  The Iranian writer/director has won the top prizes in Montreal with each of his last three films: The Children of Heaven, The Color of Paradise, and his latest, Baran.

Baran opens with a title card that, honest to God, wasn't added to the film after the events of 9/11.  It explains that since the Russian invasion of the early '80s and subsequent rise of the Taliban, 1.5 million Afghan people have fled their country and dropped roots in Iran (it's probably much, much more by now).  That causes some problems, as there aren't a lot of employment opportunities in Iran, making for fierce competition between Iranian citizens and Afghans refugees for the few crappy jobs that are available.  It's also illegal to hire the Afghan workers, so the whole thing is kind of like American companies hiring illegals from south of the border for cheap manual labor.

Most of Baran takes place on a construction work site, where boss Memar (Mohammad Amir Naji) hires dozens of hard-working illegal Afghan workers who, literally, have to run like the wind if the building inspector happens to come by for a routine visit.  One of the Afghans is Soltan (Abbas Rahimi), who, as the film opens, has just taken a tumble off the building's second story and injured his leg.  His family can't survive without his pay from the construction job, so the next day Soltan's son, Rahmat (Zahra Bahrami), shows up to take over for his dad.

Trouble is, Rahmat is a pipsqueak who can't perform Soltan's physically demanding job, which consists of hauling bags of concrete up several flights of crude stairs and mixing it for the bricklayers.  When it becomes clear he can't handle himself on the job site, Memar lets Rahmat trade places with Latif (Hossein Abedini), who does things like make tea and grocery-shop for the crew.  The change, of course, doesn't sit well with Latif, who already has a grudge against Afghan workers taking jobs from the Iranians.

Rahmat flourishes in his new responsibilities, gaining the support of the crew along the way, while Latif grows angrier and angrier.  But then something happens to make Latif rethink his position on the popular Rahmat.  I can't say what it is, because it's kind of a surprise, even though most people will be able to figure it out before anyone in the film does.

Baran, which is Iran's official entry for next year's Oscar competition, isn't as strong as some of the recent films to have come from that country, but it's still light-years ahead of paint-by-number American blockbusters like Pearl Harbor, at least artistically.  Although it's set in a drab location, Baran is still able to be strikingly beautiful with the few splashes of color it can offer.  Like other Iranian directors, Majidi doesn't do anything crazy with the camera, or have his actors (who mostly aren't) ham it up during the emotional scenes.  The result of these actions (or inactions, I guess) make this film a realistic winner.

1:33 –

for language and brief violence