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Teenage Kaim (Alizadeh) is an Afghan refugee who's fled the Taleban-led oppression in his native country to work in a coffee shop/truck stop in the tiny Iranian village of Delbaran. Running errands for the shop's owner, the elderly Khan (Ebrahimi), Kaim's been abandoned by everyone - his country, his friends, even his family - and has been left to eke a hand-to-mouth existence as an illegal immigrant.
Although the war hovers in the background of director Abolfazi Jalili's movie, there's never any sight of tanks or soldiers. Instead, "Delbaran" is a remarkably still film in which hardly anything happens. Abandoning dialogue, music and even the bare basics of storytelling, Jalili offers us a snapshot of life in this isolated border town while never doing anything more than hinting at the wider tensions that are producing the misery we glimpse.
Amazingly, this unusual approach works brilliantly. Instead of giving us a complete story, Jalili's fragmented film - comprised of details, close-ups and snatches of action - captures the effect that the war has had on these individuals' lives. Everyone here is estranged from each other and themselves, trapped in this barren, empty landscape and forced to find human connections in only the most basic, often confrontational, ways.
For all its stillness, "Delbaran" is captivating because of its poignant force. The artistry lies in Mohammad Ahmadi's beautiful cinematography, which conveys more than any actor, script, or commentary could ever manage. The result is both haunting and poetic - a glimpse of a community that struggles to exist on the border of two different worlds.
In Farsi with English subtitles.
