Exoticalot People are voting emotionally.

Spoonatects Am i the only one who thinks........Average?

Kailansorac Clever, believable, and super fun to watch. It totally has replay value.

Cheryl A clunky actioner with a handful of cool moments.

MartinHafer I noticed some reviewers thought that MAYBE this film is about something other than its obvious subject, leprosy. Well, after seeing it, I think it's about leprosy. Sure, there's a bit more to it than that, but the film really does seem to be about lepers.As the film progresses, various Muslim prayers and quotes from the Koran are read either by the narrator or by some of the subjects in the film. These are all about beauty and grace of God and are a sharp contrast to the lepers you see throughout the film. Although they appear very pitiful, most seem rather happy, though the film doesn't appear to try to say 'hey, it's great to be a leper'--more that in this day of medical miracles, Hansen's Disease (leprosy) IS curable and it's a horrible thing that so many go untreated. Forugh Farrokhzad (who wrote, directed and appears in the film) does not discuss WHY so many in her native Iran were untreated at the time--just that there is a SHARP contrast between the goodness of God and the plight of these people. This film is unpleasant and will make you think. However, it's a very well made film--one that strikes the viewer with sadness and forces you to look into the ugly face of the illness.

MARIO GAUCI To begin with, I was only vaguely aware of this Iranian documentary (albeit one that is regularly featured in all-time best film lists, and which is why I got to it now) and unfamiliar with its country of origin's cinema at large. It is a purportedly educational yet necessarily off-putting look – in unflinching detail! – at a leper colony, where one is actually stunned to learn these still exist in our day and age! For the record, the movie I was most reminded of while watching this was Werner Herzog's similarly matter-of-fact and unsentimental (yet, likewise, understandably dispiriting) EVEN DWARFS STARTED SMALL (1970).While isolated, so as to have their disease contained, the members of the misshapen community involved are nevertheless seen going through many of the typical social functions – school, recreation, even praying! Whether the first (the film's very title coming up in an impromptu reply during class) and last (despite its striving to achieve a lyrical quality) among these are undertaken of their own volition is anybody's guess, indeed doubtful – since the former is basically futile and the latter not only ironic but downright cruel, if you ask me! With this in mind, it is clear that they enjoy themselves most in their leisure time, however they opt to spend it: amusingly, one man fancies himself a singer…even if he can only muster a loud racket that seems to exasperate his 'colleagues' as much as they do the viewer!

Boba_Fett1138 Quite surprising to see a documentary like this coming from the country Iran. You wouldn't think they would be too happy of showing leper patients and colonies to the entire world but yet this documentary managed to get made and released and is still globally considered to be an important one and is seen as the beginning of Iranian new wave.It isn't really a documentary that tries to tell or story or gets a point across but it's more one that simply shows you things with its images. The visuals tell all you need to know. It shows the effects of leprosy on people of all ages and in all its various stages, also in its most gruesome and devastating forms.It still does provide some information on the disease, to learn the Iranian people about it and make them aware of the decease and the fact that there are leper colonies in the country, in which people are living a normal as possible life and are also receiving treatment and going to school.In that regard this is also somewhat of a more hopeful documentary, rather than a depressing one that shows you unhappy and incredibly sick or suffering people, who are waiting for their deaths. The documentary even makes it very clear that the decease is indeed curable and is not something that is inherited, so it's something that can be banned out completely with time, when taken the right precautions.The hopefulness and thankfulness gets also illustrated by the many Koran lines that got put over the documentary and were delivered by the people with leprosy. In it they thank their God for everything they have. Or is there perhaps some reversed deeper meaning to it, trying to make a statement about the treatment of leper sufferers and the ruling power that puts them in these colonies. But this is something we often assume is the case with any movie/documentary coming out from a country that at the time suffers from an oppressing power or government. Perhaps we shouldn't read too much into it and simply appreciate the documentary for what it clearly is on its surface. Still the movie its very last shot makes me think it was a sort of a protest movie as well.But even when you don't get that out of this documentary or don't want to read too much into things, you should be able than more to appreciate this documentary, since of the entire way it got shot and told. It has some great, beautiful, black & white cinematography, as well as a pleasant quick editing style and directing approach by female director Forugh Farrokhzad, who was better known as an important poet, during and after her lifetime, which ended abruptly in a road accident, only a couple of years after this movie.An unique watch into a leper colony.8/10http://bobafett1138.blogspot.com/

Pierre Radulescu It was the only movie made by Forough Farrokhzad.A documentary of 20 minutes length; actually it is a documentary only at the first level of meaning: the disturbing images from a leper colony are meditated in verses that partner what's flowing on the screen. Fragments from Psalms, from Koran, from her own poetry. And her stanzas, sometimes in sync with the images, some times in counterpoint, always challenging the versets from the sacred books. One of the greatest poets of the twentieth century, that's what I believe Forough Farrokhzad is.This movie is a cinematic poem: empathy for the extreme suffering, desolation that we cannot escape from our condition, and, in the same time, awe in face of the beauty of creation.I think the key of the movie is done by two verses:Who is this in hell Praising you, O Lord?The hell is also part of the world; and it is ultimately beautiful because world is beautiful.This is extraordinary here in the movie: the subtle impulse to see the Universe as beautiful in all its dimensions, even in its ugliest expressions - to see the splendor of the human condition, even in its most horrible shape.Or maybe the verses tell us something slightly different: as they are in turn fearful, desolate, bitter, pessimistic, sarcastic against God and praising God, it is here the honesty and the courage of the poet to recognize having all these contradictory feelings. And this speaks indeed about the splendor of the human condition: to encompass everything, to assume all contradictions, to be their sovereign - as the Universe is.