Baran means as well rain as it is the name of a girl. In the opening scene we see the calligraphy for rain and the expression: "God is the almighty" which points at the fatalism of the persons in this movie. The main character of the movie Latif (Hossein Abedini) works as a cook at a construction site In Teheran where all sort of tribes come together to work: Kurds, Azeiris and illegal Afghans. The Afghans are the cheapest work-force because they are illegal in the country and so there is also a whole commerce of false passports. Is not clear what Latif is doing with his own passport, he will perhaps sell it to make money. Latif is an aggressive person and he looses his easy job to an illegal Afghan boy and so he must do now the heavy work which makes him still more angry about his condition. Soon an unexpected event will change this... The Iranian movie-maker Majid Majid made also "The Children of Heaven (1997)" and "The Colour of Paradise (1999)". Baran is a naturalistic film and makes one think of "Riff-Raff (1962)" of Ken Loach. The movie is also in the same time a love-story with unreal aspects but the last scene with the girl going to Afghanistan and putting on her burqa on her face is again a jump into reality and the movie ends in the rain. This movie is before all a social drama showing the inhumane conditions of one million Afghan immigrants in Iran but the director does not loose his optimism and some scenes are rather humorous.
