The latest films I have watched ...

 

The three films I have watched lately have led me into different worlds and realities from the ones we are used to in the West, but more than that made me ponder on complex issues such as family loyalty, self-sacrifice, self preservation, loss and the realization that very often life does clearly not align with one's idealized expectations.

 

 

Despite the harsh reality conveyed there's an immense beauty in the way each of these films approaches the main issue, whether it is in an Hasidic Orthodox Jewish family in Israel, a Nomadic tribe in Iran or across the borders  from Iran into Afghanistan. 


They are all slow-paced, delicately well acted and mostly "woven through" layers of  expressions, small moves, gestures and silences. If on one hand every main character in each of these films is a "prisoner" of a visible or invisible veil, I as a viewer became "hooked" onto what good filmography is (should be) by the time I finish watching them ... 

Each of these films deserves (needs) to be watched more than once because of the importance behind every word which has been said and  the hundred ones omitted. The wide cultural  and socio-political digressions conveyed by these alternative films, from the hardships women face under the Taliban regime to the Iranian tribal hand knotted rug ("Gabbeh"), whose weaving tells a story and the mysteries of Purin celebrations or Shabbat meals, have made me want to further immerse myself into getting to know more about these worlds.