VeteranLight I don't have all the words right now but this film is a work of art.

XoWizIama Excellent adaptation.

Chirphymium It's entirely possible that sending the audience out feeling lousy was intentional

Janae Milner Easily the biggest piece of Right wing non sense propaganda I ever saw.

richardpfau This was a movie unlike anything I have ever seen. A real eye opener into life in a war-torn country. Fascinating, lovely, and tragic.

ThurstonHunger So often times I find I am most appreciated in my role as husband, the less I say. Honestly, it came up the evening before I watched this film. That being said, I'm not quite willing to take a bullet in the neck to help the process. Alas only a bullet and no Oscar for Hamid Djavadan as the husband in this film. Although it used to be a theory that mute actresses could win an award for similar roles.Golshifteh Farahani is the actress here, and far from mute, she finds her voice/strength/resolve. Her beauty is striking, did anyone else find that detracted some from the dire dilapidation of her village and situation. The filmmakers did try to muss her up some, but in "The Patience Stone" we are reminded again that a jewel in the rough is still a jewel. Radiant.And this film is all hers, with perhaps the most soliloquies you'll see this side of graduation week at an arts college. Her face runs an impressive gamut of expression, but as I bought the air of impending danger (one scene in particular with a neighbor driven mad really resonated), that I had a hard time with her character registering anything more than shock. Granted I realize far too many people (and children) grow up in such troubling circumstances, and that alone is mind-boggling. (And soul-shaking.) There are interesting side-story and back-story aspects (The Aunt!!) so perhaps the book would be best to start with (I had intended to, but didn't get around to it.) Mostly this film is a story of perhaps the most impossible marital counseling one could ever expect.Although, there are some things I bet you will expect while watching it, and while the fair Ms. Farahani is Iranian, this film is definitely French and becomes so the more it progresses.Still something different to watch and contemplate (no Fatwa so far for the director). I did learn of Dari (a Farsi variant from Afghanistan, but I've no clue what native speakers of either thought about this film, and I would be curious.) Also the yellow burqa was an indelible image. I looked a little for Islamic symbolism for the same. Watching Farahani flip it on and still infuse that billowing robe with her energy was eye-catching. I did wonder as she went into a pharmacy at one point how people could quickly tell who is who in such a situation. I imagine it can be done, something about the specific burqa and how the woman moves within it....of course the voice, but it seems having a stunt double or misdirection/fake alibi by virtue of the burqa could happen.Probably identifying women in their burqas is easier than I can imagine, but perhaps misleading mullahs is easier than they too can imagine? Let me know when that film is made ;> The film definitely felt more like a play come to the big screen than a book, but perhaps the book was streamlined to fit. Guess I'd recommend trying to read it first, but watching the film is worth one's while, especially for fawning fans of Farahani.By the way, perhaps leaving some stones unturned is okay?

maurice yacowar Atiq Rahimi's The Patience Stone examines that understudied thesis: Islamic terrorism is rooted in a repressed and perverted sexuality. As the heroine's worldly aunt remarks, the men who make war can't make love. Though the film is based on Rahimi's novel, its sexual and moral paradoxes smack of the films co-scripter Jean-Claude Carriere wrote with Bunuel. The terrorist officers are proud to rape virgins but refuse to rape a whore. That saves the virtuous heroine (Golshifteh Farahani). Conversely, the young soldier who approaches her as a whore is the first man to treat her with respect and affection. As the victim of his commander's sadism he empathizes with the supposed whore. The woman who personifies the will and capacity to survive is the prostitute aunt. That fate awaits the heroine's two young daughters -- if they are lucky enough to survive the male world of war. The reversals are as surreal as the bombed landscape. The central marriage is totally aberrant. The young girl was by arrangement both engaged and married to the terrorist hero in absentia. As a lover he's even more absent when he's there. His "love" making is brutish and violent. The closest the woman comes to a happy relationship with him is when he lies comatose and she can for the first time unburden herself of her secrets. After ten years of silence and misery she comes to like him when he ostensibly listens to her. For the first time she has a voice. For the first time she can express herself. For the first time he can not spurn her kisses and caresses. The confession that breaks through, that returns him to life, is her revelation that because he is sterile she arranged for another man to sire his two daughters. The woman needed to procreate to sustain the marriage. When he returns to himself his impulse is to kill her. Again male violence is rooted in a perverse concept of masculinity. For more see www.yacowar.blogspot.com.

Arashpit For people form middle east it would be good to know that women are as human as men. For the rest of the world its good to know that human feeling exist the same way even under hijab! The most impressive line is "those who don't know to make love, make war". Golshifteh is a pioneer in breaking the control freak nature of middle eastern culture which I believe is the main factor that underlies sexual complexes and subsequent dysfunction in the layers of society. She, aware or not, is the first person who is putting an end to this. The picture and landscaping is realistic and the motion of the lens is so touchable in alternative induction of life threatening vigilance and peaceful love making moments. Filmography explains the culture for non-afghan viewers pretty digestible.