Absurdist political comedy set on Election Day in Iran, more precisely the desolate island of Kish in the Persian Gulf. The officious election official, a city woman in a heavy chador that leaves only her face exposed and requires constant readjustment, has until five o'clock to round up every vote on the sparsely populated island, and by God she means to do it, escorted by a burly, meaty-faced soldier with a too-small hat (like Chaplin, like Langdon), a rifle, and a jeep. A fugitive in flight from authority gets run to earth: "We must have his vote!" A list of ten candidates will be presented to everyone (or photos of them for the illiterate), from which the voter is to select two, even if his preferred candidate is nowhere on the list, even if he recognizes none of them. One old man wants to vote for Allah alone. With time running short, the law-abiding soldier stops at a red light in the middle of nowhere, though they haven't seen another car all day. In the by now familiar Iranian way, nobody smiles, and everybody tirelessly repeats themselves. Writer-director Babak Payami, not one of the hitherto familiar names (but Mohsen Makhmalbaf is credited with the story idea), exhibits total assurance to go along with, and lend support to, a balky, mulish pace. He shoots predominantly in long shot, careful, purposeful compositions that hold the screen and are long held. Apart from the marvelous sense of landscape, of entering it and of moving around in it, the distances from the camera generate an air of watchfulness and patience. Democracy advances slowly. Nassim Abdi, Cyrus Ab. (2001) — Duncan Shepherd
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