The film depicts how a person in power - even a little bit power - can abuse of it's position towards another person. This is of course obvious in a country with a totalitarianism regime like Iran, but not only. The authoritarianism abuse as depicted in the movie could also be seen as a metaphor for all abuse in general, wherever the country you live in. Are we not all, in some degree or another, sometimes subjected to abusive behavior by a overzealous clerk, frustrated official, sadistic policeman, bad-tempered secretary? This for example in the name of security, or health or safety, etc.
Sometimes we are not even aware of it. But how many times are we not taken in hostage by irritating websites who are forcing us to fill-in over and over again the same stupid data in order to pursue a request or demand. All that bureaucratic nonsense we are faced with in official offices but also private banks, insurance companies, post-offices, courthouses, hospitals, telephone companies, where sometimes we are confronted with people who are absolutely not willing to help you out but on the contrary will do everything to ruin your day or even abuse of their power to patronize or humiliate you.
So of course the plots of the movie are set in Iran but it's depicting brilliantly a general unfortunate human behavior which will be understood by everybody, wherever you live.
The film is rated 7.4 but deserves a much better rate in my opinion. The dialogues are well written, the actors are very just and realistic in their simplicity (it's almost like a documentary but yet it's all fiction) and the directors' choices for the staging of the actors and the positioning of the camera is accurate. In a nutshell a little gem worth seeing.
