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A beautiful and haunting Afghan film about love, devotion, and a woman’s “duty”; a remarkable feminist story from the unlikeliest place on the planet. I’m “biast” (pro): nothing

I’m “biast” (con): nothing

I have not read the source material

(what is this about? see my critic’s minifesto)

We don’t know where what we witness is occurring, but it is a place of sand and no running water, of mullahs and burqas, of battle raging nearby and grievously wounded soldiers. One of those soldiers (Hamidreza Javdan) lies comatose in his home, nursed by his much younger wife (Golshifteh Farahani: Body of Lies) to the degree that she is able. It’s getting more difficult now that the pharmacist refuses to give her, on credit, any more of the “serum” her husband needs — as a poor near-widow, her husband unable to support her or their small daughters,...

Chicago – Despite any manmade restrictions through governments, religion, commerce or trumped-up morality, the truth has a way of mightily conquering all. “The Patience Stone” is a perfect example of that luxurious truth, and it is an important contemporary fairy tale.

Rating: 5.0/5.0

Through the most simplest of premises – a war victim is stuck caring for her vegetative husband – there emerges the passion of what is essential for human beings. Being authentic, unburdening the soul and coming to what is necessary in our lives to fully engage – that is what the film unleashes. The war zone depicted in the story is a Middle East-type setting, but is never named, and provides a presence to the native suffering that is occurs in perpetual conflict. The marginalization of women in these traditionally religious territories is another grand theme of the narrative, and speaks to the broader context of narrowing the humanity of females in general.

Title: The Patience Stone Director: Atiq Rahimi Starring: Golshifteh Farahani, Hamid Djavadan, Hassina Burgan, Massi Mrowat Atiq Rahimi’s “The Patience Stone” is a unique, intimately scaled and enormously affecting dissection of patriarchal culture. The French-Afghan filmmaker’s drama, which debuted at last year’s Toronto Film Festival and was Afghanistan’s Best Foreign Language Academy Award submission, serves as a wonderful showcase for star Golshifteh Farahani, and if there’s any justice will deliver even more success her way. The film’s story is extraordinarily plain, yet still gripping. In contemporary, war-torn Afghanistan, a young wife (Farahani) and mother of two children, after around a decade of marriage, tends to her wounded husband (Hamid Djavadan), [ Read More ]

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Stone Faced: Rahimi’s Concept Bogged Down By Transparency

As he did with his 2004 film, Earth and Ashes, Afghan filmmaker Atiq Rahimi adapts one of his own novels, The Patience Stone, for his latest feature. A situational drama inspired by a native fable concerning the titular stone, Rahimi proposes a ‘what if’ scenario that unfortunately gets repetitively tiresome, even if its locale grants it a certain compelling fervor. What if a Muslim woman could speak her mind truthfully without fear of consequence, relay her innermost thoughts and emotions to a catatonic spouse that’s kept her under the harsh thumb of his oppression for a decade? Whatever agency our lead protagonist is able to establish for herself, there’s an arid hue of hopelessness surrounding her specific situation, and its dubious streak of fortune makes this feel like science fiction.

In an unspecified Afghan city set during the country’s recent upheaval,...

Title: The Patience Stone Sony Pictures Classics Director: Atiq Rahimi Screenwriter: Jean-Claude Carriére, Atiq Rahimi from his novel Cast: Golshifteh Farahani, Hamidrez Javdan, Hassina Burgan, Massi Browat, Hamid Djavadan, Massi Mrowat Screened at: Sony, NYC, 8/8/13 Opens: August 14, 2013 The expression “Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned” applies mightily in Atiq Rahimi’s “The Patience Stone.” In fact while that bon mot might best apply to the women of oppressive countries like Iran and Afghanistan, the quote comes strangely enough from William Congreve’s “The Mourning Bride,” written in 1697, from a country where compared to what women undergo in much of the profoundly sexist world, Britain must have [ Read More ]

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