Baran

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.

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.

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.