New This Week
Critics & Publications
Archives: A-Z Index
Advanced Search

Upcoming Release Calendar
Awards & Bests By Year
All-Time High Scores
All-Time Low Scores
How Metascores Are Calculated
Discuss Film In Our Forums

sort by name

sort by score

38 12 Rounds
xx Baby on Board
xx Bob Funk
62 Cherry Blossoms
38 Confessions of a Shopaholic
38 Crossing Over
38 Dark Streets
58 Defiance
45 Fanboys
31 Fired Up
37 Forever Strong
34 Friday the 13th
72 Gran Torino
47 He's Just Not That Into You
47 Inkheart
52 International, The
45 Jonas Brothers: The 3D Concert Experience
50 Madea Goes to Jail
51 Morning Light
51 My Bloody Valentine 3-D
29 New in Town
28 Nobel Son
40 Outlander
39 Paul Blart: Mall Cop
56 Phoebe in Wonderland
36 Pink Panther 2
xx Powder Blue
69 Revolutionary Road
20 Spinning Into Butter
17 Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun-Li
64 Thousand Years of Good Prayers, A
63 Tokyo!
74 Two Lovers
56 Valkyrie
91 Waltz with Bashir
22 What Goes Up

Stars indicate the most critically-acclaimed movies.

Baran
Miramax Films


9.3

based on 25 reviews
Read critic reviews
How did we calculate this?

based on 8 votes
Read user comments
Rate this movie

FILM:

MPAA RATING: PG for language and brief violence

Starring Hossein Abedini, Zahra Bahrami, Mohammad Amir Naji, Hossein Mahjoub, Abbas Rahimi, and Gholam Ali Bakhshi

Baran is the story of Afghan refugees told through the eyes of an Iranian teenage boy named Lateef. His devotion to a person he barely knows leads him to the choice that will change his life forever. (Miramax Films)

GENRE(S):	Romance
WRITTEN BY:	Majid Majidi
DIRECTED BY:	Majid Majidi
RELEASE DATE:	DVD: October 22, 2002 Video: October 22, 2002 Theatrical: December 7, 2001
RUNNING TIME:	94 minutes, Color
ORIGIN:	Iran
LANGUAGE(S):	Farsi / Dari (with English subtitles)

Original Farsi title "Hamsay-e khoda"; Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actor (Abedini), Best Music, Best Sound Recording, Best Sound Effects, 2001 International Teheran Fajr Film Festival; Grand Prix of America, 2001 Montreal World Film Festival

All critic scores are converted to a 100-point scale. If a critic does not indicate a score, we assign a score based on the general impression given by the text of the review. Learn more...

100

Boston Globe Jay Carr

Simple, but loaded. It celebrates the humanity and humanism at the heart of Iran's remarkable flow of films, but it's also more of a rebuke to materialistic values than any ideologue could ever hope to be.

100

Los Angeles Times Kevin Thomas

A superlative work, offering a rich emotional experience that at the same time calls attention to the seemingly endless suffering of the Afghan people.

100

Christian Science Monitor David Sterritt

Expressively filmed story of rivalry, romance, and cultural conflict.

Washington Post Ann Hornaday

Majidi has discovered a wonderful cast of players to bring this gentle allegory to life, especially Naji as the irascible but generous Memar, who displays nearly perfect comic timing.

Washington Post Desson Thomson

As in Chaplin's films, humor and tragedy dance a wonderful tango throughout the movie. Baran is heartbreaking and laugh-out-loud funny, sometimes apart, sometimes together.

The New York Times Dana Stevens

The lovely clarity of this story, which seems to have been drawn from the literature of an earlier age, is well served by the artful subtlety of the telling. Mr. Majidi prefers imagery to exposition, and his shots are as dense with meaning, and as readily accessible, as Dutch paintings.

New York Magazine Peter Rainer

It's an elliptical tragedy in which the fate of its characters takes on a larger significance while never losing its intimacy.

Chicago Tribune Michael Wilmington

A film that uses beautiful tableaux and convincingly raw actors to build to a climax of shatteringly understated poignancy and power.

Charlotte Observer Lawrence Toppman

The director lingers over images, watching builders at work or Baran at her chores; the camera often seems to daydream, like Lateef. No grand climax caps the film, but the small incidents have a cumulative effect.

Chicago Sun-Times Roger Ebert

The latest in a flowering of good films from Iran, and gives voice to the moderates there. It shows people existing and growing in the cracks of their society's inflexible walls.

USA Today Mike Clark

Majidi tells his simple story with dazzling vision.

Entertainment Weekly Lisa Schwarzbaum

There are moments in Baran as wholesomely heart-tugging as any involving Charlie Chaplin and a blind girl, but the film is saved from aren't-kids-cute sentimentality by a warmth that isn't faked and a stately sense of composition.

TV Guide Ken Fox

Each frame is exquisitely framed, the acting is superb -- Abedini deserves to be a star -- and the impermanence of the lives of displaced Afghans is hauntingly expressed.

Chicago Reader Ted Shen

Despite its mawkish tendencies, the film is remarkable for the naturalistic acting of its cast, particularly the simple, tenderly expressive performances of the two leads.

New York Post Jonathan Foreman

A far more impressive and affecting piece of filmmaking and storytelling than most movies put out by Hollywood this year, and offers, as a bonus, a glimpse into a fascinating, contradictory society.

Seattle Post-Intelligencer Sean Axmaker

The faces of its inarticulate characters tell the story, and Majidi has put some amazing faces on the screen.

San Francisco Chronicle Mick LaSalle

Can and should be appreciated as a work of delicate and unmistakable beauty.

Portland Oregonian Shawn Levy

The film is filled with fascinating, static set-ups, beautiful but never fussy or artificial.

New York Daily News Jami Bernard

Yet another deceptively simple, supremely moving film from Iran.

LA Weekly Ella Taylor

Though Baran is more forgiving of the Afghans' Iranian hosts than they may deserve, writer-director Majid Majidi ("The Color of Paradise") handles his unassuming material with surpassing delicacy, and the poetic eye for the rhythms and routines of hard labor that has become the hallmark of Iranian film.

New Times (L.A.) Andy Klein

If the performances are the prime reason the film is as engaging as it is, it must also be said that Majidi's visual style seems far more sophisticated than in "Children of Heaven."

Newsweek Michael J. Agovino

It has a timely resonance. While it doesn't have that transcendent quality of Majidi's earlier work -- the implied bleakness from across the border puts a slightly darker hue on the proceedings -- it does tell a story worth telling.

Film Threat Michael Dequina

Any embedded message ultimately pales in importance to moving and understated story of love.

Variety Deborah Young

A fine cast brings the believable, sometimes humorous characters to life and gradually draws the viewer into a well-crafted, well-paced story.

Village Voice Michael Atkinson

Remains simplistic and gimmicky in the context of Iranian cinema.

The average user rating for this movie is 9.3 (out of 10) based on 8 User Votes
Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.

Jay H gave it an8:
A sensitive, beautiful and remarkable film. The cinematography is particularly excellent. The performances are exceptional. It's a film not easy to forget, fascinating from start to finish.

Rafael J gave it a10:
Mahid Mahidi has another film"children from heaven that is just as good as "The color of paradise" and this one. He has 3 other that are not in this part of the world.

Eric S. gave it a10:
As you watch the movie, ask yourself what guides Lateef. Is it a possible desire for romance, as some have suggested; is it also extreme guilt, longing for penitence, protectiveness toward the opposite sex, sympathy, and, finally, respect for the value of human life? Does it start with a few of these feelings, and then lead to progressively more? Why is the movie called "Baran," when it appears to be much more about the moral growth of Lateef? Could it be that Lateef's devotion is to Baran, ultimately the "rain" that cleanses his soul?

Patricia D. gave it a10:
A different movie, full of emotion and melancoli.

Chad S. gave it a 9:
They don't serve tea at a Ken Loach worksite. In "Baran", the girl Baran masquerades as a boy; not too successfully but she passes muster with the largely Iranian housebuilders, who tolerate, but don't truly see the Afghani labor amongst them. But Lateef discovers Baran's not-THAT-guarded secret and falls in love with her. At first, we think Lateef is shy, but then it dawns on us that it's Baran's background which keeps him from pursuing her heart. At first, "Baran" is sort of like the Iranian "Riff-Raff", but then it turns into a meditation on how politics prevent love from being requited. When Lateef leaves the construction site, Majid Majidi and his d.p. unleash a multitude of memorable images. In the stunning final scene, Baran does something to demonstrate that she's not a victim of Lateef's thousand-yard stare. Baran feels the same way too. And the final shot, is a powerful one, that sends you out of the theater happy. Go Greek if you must, then go east young man(or woman), go east.

Nima J. gave it a 10:
loved it! Iranian cinema is starting to become appealing for the first time :)

Baran Miramax Films

Baran
Miramax Films