Dar sarzamin-e baradar

Watched this at the 2024 Sundance Film Festival.

Told in three stories, "In the Land of Brothers" are able to capture the essence, complications, and heartbreaking scenarios of political conflicts, relationships, culture, and the grittiness of reality. The filmmakers were able to capture the themes, tone, and writing for each of the three stories with good emotions, interesting characters and moments that felt tense and depressing without feeling sappy and over the top.

Each of the characters and writing are handled with maturity and all of the performances from the cast members are good. Really brought out the emotions between the characters and the core of the film's message and purpose. The camerawork, production designs, and the soundtrack is beautiful. There were moments that were touching and I did feel sad watching it.

Personally, the first and third story remains to be the most impactful one. While the second one does have some faults with the pacing, it still was a good one. Overall, the film strives as another good Iranian movie.

Just and profound.

The structure of the film (three stories, three examples of what can happen to an Afghan refugee in Iran, over three decades) forced me to feel the absurdity of humanity, spreaded over countries and time.

This film is very well directed. I can't spek about the dialog, since I don't understand the language it was filmed in, but the acting is coherent with the quality of the photography and the soundtrack.

When I went out of the theatre I watched the film in, it was spring in Paris, I had nothing to do but walk home under a soothing sun, and I told myself that I actually lived in heaven. And that I should appreciate it more than I do.