I watched one of Asghar Farhadi’s first films, Shahr-e ziba, 2004. As always with him, it turned out to be quite a heavy drama, he does not make light films. At first we see young men held in a special kind of prison, one of them - Akbar - turns 18, his friend A-la gives him a celebration, but instead of rejoicing, Akbar suffers. An
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I watched one of Asghar Farhadi’s first films, Shahr-e ziba, 2004. As always with him, it turned out to be quite a heavy drama, he does not make light films. At first we see young men held in a special kind of prison, one of them - Akbar - turns 18, his friend A-la gives him a celebration, but instead of rejoicing, Akbar suffers. An employee of the institution explains to A-la the reason for his behavior, because Akbar has reached the age of majority, now he will be transferred to a real prison, where the issue of his execution will be decided, because he killed a person. They have several options there in Iran - the prosecutor can pay a large enough amount of money to expedite the execution, in which case the money will go to the family of the accused. He can forgive him with all the ensuing consequences up to release, as the court decides. Akbar is taken to prison, and A-la is released after a while, he was imprisoned for robbery. And then A-la decides to do everything possible to free his friend. To begin with, he goes to his sister, who, after talking to her, learns that she has tried many times over the past two years to persuade the accuser to forgive Akbar, but has achieved nothing. The father does not want to forgive Akbar the death of his daughter. And then the sister and A-la begin to act together, in the end the option emerges - to pay the accuser a ransom, which will go to the treatment of the daughter of his second wife, who is seriously ill. However, they are very tight with money. During the communication, A-la and her sister are imbued with feelings for each other, he learns that she already a year and a half ago divorced her husband, a drug addict, just hides it from the neighbors of his dysfunctional neighborhood. In the end, another version comes up - A-la can marry this sick girl, this option is most like her mother, but we will not see what they choose and whether they can get forgiveness, the end is open. The movie is hard, but I liked it.
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