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Hassan Yektapanah's Djomeh won the Golden Camera Award (for best first feature) at Cannes, firmly establishing Iran as the world's current cinematic hotbed. Fans of Abbas Kiarostami (The Wind Will Carry Us) and Jafar Panahi (The Circle) should love Djomeh, as Yektapanah honed his skills by working as an assistant director for both filmmakers (he wrote, directed, edited and even served as a production designer here).
The film is about a young man (Jalil Nazari) from Afghanistan (hey, that rhymes!) who leaves his homeland because of his country's traditions regarding marriage. Djomeh wants to marry by his 20th birthday, but customs say he must wait until he is much, much older. So he relocates to Iran and gets a job at a dairy farm, where he milks the cows and goats and drives around town to collect milk from everyone else, accompanied by his boss (Mahmoud Behraznia), who becomes somewhat of a father figure to Djomeh.
The two have long conversations about love and marriage, revealing Djomeh to be an intelligent, well-spoken, sincere lad. On one of his delivery stops, Djomeh meets a girl (Mahbobeh Khalili) and falls head-over-heels, but because of Iranian customs, she can't even speak to him.
With a soundtrack toplined by moaning cows and goats, Djomeh, like other recent offerings from Iran, is comprised mostly of long shots from a single stationary camera and uses a group of actors with no background in film. This makes the picture seem more realistic and much more enjoyable to watch than something packed full of professional actors (like America's Sweethearts).
1:34 - Not Rated
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