Enjoyable movie

The dialogues are based on Afghan language.

Finally, I watched the movie and I’m quite satisfied with the experience.
The script, as well as the leading actress’s performance is amazing. I cannot remember a special scene that I liked the most, as there are many. There are various untold stories about Afghan women and during the film I felt myself as the patience stone, listening to the main character’s miseries.
Everything was fine to me except the references made to the holy prophet’s quotes, especially when they are not defined properly. I believe that the film’s narration is good by itself and does not need delivering some paraphrases that my lead to some misunderstandings.
As a Muslim, I can understand the whole idea, yet all the time I was afraid that some audiences may relate the woman’s misfortunes to her religion which is not the case.
Hope to see more movies by Atiq Rahimi.

I concur as to the movie's great quality.

Having read Rahimi's novel when it was published back in 2008, I was quite surprised to hear a cinematic adaptation was underway because the novel is, well, quite "literary" and "monologistic". I read somewhere around here that the material felt more suited to theater than film, and I had to agree to that assessment.

Anyway, I went to see the movie yesterday and was impressed at how splendidly Rahimi and Carrière managed to pull it off; I guess inviting such a consummate professional to pitch in turned out to be a brilliant move. They managed to agreeably pace the "confession" sequences with the rest, which results in the film not being monotonously talkative.

Oh, and Farahani delivered a superb performance and was a treat to the eyes.

Glad to see others enjoyed it as well!

Many people hate Farahani in Iran right now cuase you know.....but she really is a good actress and movie was fine too

Saw it at Vancouver Intl. Film Festival tonight and loved it, and the large audience applauded loudly at the end. The 102 minutes flew by and that surprised me considering the amount of monologue by one character. And I just realized that we never knew Farahani's character's name. I liked the references from the Koran - to me they provided insight to the woman's situation (and the brief story of Khadija in the film was particularly intuitive to me). As several reviewers haved stated, the woman could be any woman in any country torn apart by war. Also you see that the "enemy" may change day by day and the fact that you survived one day gives hope for the next. The relationship with the young soldier was well done and a nice surprise (and it was particularly interesting that the young soldier stuttered - something rarely seen in foreign language films).

I thought the film was beautiful to look at. The interiors, the costumes, the vilage built into the hills and all the actresses. It was incredibly brutal with very little violence on display although there was one scene that was particularly harrowing. I love films that give a window into a culture rarely seen, especially in this particular culture to hear it from a woman.

The distance is nothing. The first step is the hardest.