Like an intoxicating, slow-moving swirl of deep colors and even deeper emotions, Afghani filmmaker and novelist Atiq Rahimi’s The Patience Stone, an adaptation of his own award-winning novel, Syngue Sabour, quietly enraptures the senses and rewards those who possess the titular human quality. Set in war-torn Afghanistan, it’s a meditation about truth as the key to true liberation. Truth as breath, words, emerging gently, rebelliously, from within a woman whose every fiber pleads with her to suppress it.

The film opens with the woman (the gorgeous Iranian actress Golshifteh Farahani, who remains unnamed) caring for her ostensibly comatose husband (Hamidreza Javdan, also nameless), in a small, sparsely furnished, but lusciously colored room. She dabs his forehead with a compress and whimpers, “Can you hear me?” The rift between them (a fine juxtaposition to the film’s pervasive intimacy) caused by the husband’s apparent absence of consciousness (from a bullet to the neck) frames the story.

She pleads with her husband to wake up, and we learn that their family (they have two children) has been rendered destitute—she’s shouldering more than she can handle, raising the children alone and keeping her husband alive (by a string) with saline bags, for pity’s sake. Abandoned by her in-laws (they’ve fled the war, like many others), unable to pay for her husband’s medicine due to piles of debt, and even hurting for a reliable source of water, she’s helpless beyond reason. She speaks to her husband meekly, in a steady, undulating stream of whispered secrets, confessions of fear, and desperate pleas to the heavens for respite. She looks as if in a daze as she vents, her eyes fixed on something that isn’t there. The husband lies motionless.

Distant bombs rattle the azure walls, a constant reminder of the death that looms beyond the windows and doors. The war eventually enters her family’s home in the form of two soldiers. She forms a sexual relationship with one of them, a young man who occasionally returns for intimate rendezvous (she’s lied and told him she’s a whore to protect her husband, who’s been hidden in the closet.) During a visit to her aunt’s place, the aunt poetically likens her dire situation to that of a folk tale, Syngue Sabour, which tells of a stone that you empty all of your fears and secrets into until it eventually shatters, leaving you free to proceed through life. The scene is heavy-handed and a bit melodramatic, but it ultimately serves the story well.

The woman’s one-way talks with her husband turn increasingly disagreeable with the expectations thrust upon her as a Muslim woman—she speaks in her husband’s ear of long-gestating resentments and even of her adulterous encounters with the soldier. Her eyes soften, her voice calms down from a nervous soprano to a buttery alto, and she pulses with confidence and forbidden ecstasy. She seems to have let go of her burdens, and even looks happy. We think, if the husband can hear her, he must be torn apart inside, even seething. Eventually, his eyes suddenly show a glimmer of presence—if he is the legendary stone, then he must shatter.

If you listen, watch, and submit to the film’s admittedly glacial pace, you’ll be rewarded with a wonderful, soul-stirring filmic experience. Rahimi and screenwriter Jean-Claude Carriére make empowering, lyrical and elegant statements about female oppression in Muslim cultures. Farahani is so pretty it’s breathtaking, which is good, since the film is essentially hers, a 100-minute monologue. Her mannerisms and demeanor evolve ever so slowly over the course of the film, though she looks like a completely different person by the film’s conclusion. Rahimi couldn’t have done better than to have cast her in this, a veritable mountain of a role.

Cinematographer Thierry Arbogast (The Professional, The Fifth Element) has outdone himself—you could print out every frame of The Patience Stone and hang them in art museums across the globe next to Goya paintings (one of Rahimi’s main visual inspirations.) The colors are rich, vibrant, and serene, with the couple’s room bathed in an unforgettable blue and adorned with richly dyed fabrics and tapestries. Rahimi’s camera is unearthly still, levitating in place and un-intrusively observing. He barely cuts, letting shots linger long enough for you to absorb every bit of the image. The Patience Stone is a pulsating, moody existential tale that delicately swarms the senses and simply asks that you sit, watch, listen, and inhale deeply.

The Patience Stone trailer:

French by way of Afghanistan filmmaker and novelist Atiq Rahimi’s new film, The Patience Stone, is an adaptation of his award-winning novel, Syngue Sabour. About a woman (Golshifteh Farahani) in Afghanistan who’s lost everything and is burdened with watching over her comatose husband, the story is framed and inspired by an old Persian folktale. Back in April during the San Francisco International Film Festival, where Rahimi screened the movie, he sat with us to discuss his filmmaking technique, why he wrote the book, storytelling in film as opposed to novels, why Farahani’s beauty is dangerous, and more.

The Patience Stone is playing in select cities now and opens in San Francisco this Friday, August 30th.

When you came up with the idea for the novel, were you thinking you wanted to tell a story of women’s liberation, then decide that Syngue Sabour would be a good way to frame it, or did you want to write a novel about the folk tale, which then evolved into a tale of liberation?
(laughs) No, no. In the beginning, I didn’t ask myself about that. This is why I wrote the book—in 2005 I was invited to a literature meeting in Afghanistan, but one week before my flight, the meeting was cancelled because a young Afghan poetess was assassinated. I asked why she was assassinated. Was it Taliban? No. She was assassinated by her husband. Two or three weeks later, I went to Afghanistan to investigate. I wanted to write about it in an article for a French magazine.

Her family didn’t want to meet me. Her husband, who was in jail, tried to commit suicide by injecting himself with gasoline. He didn’t die, but was hospitalized and in a coma. I saw him from afar in this situation, and it inspired me to write this story. If I was a woman, I’d be here, close to this man, just to tell him everything. It was just that—not about liberation, not about trying to define feminism. No. It was about my emotions, my sentiments in front of this situation, this drama.

I don’t know how I wrote the story. How, why. I don’t know. In the beginning, I wanted to be inside of the man’s head. For me, this is very important—how the man thinks when he hears anything from his wife. She talks about her sexuality, her secrets. He hears everything, but he cannot move! But, I couldn’t get into his head. This woman, she comes from inside of me. I became a woman, for three months to write this story.

So, despite the big, universal themes at work in the film, this is actually a very, very personal work to you from the perspective of both the man and the woman.
Yes, it’s personal. When you write, you have so many visions about men, women, couples, religion, politics, etc. I don’t write to show what I’m thinking, but I use my thoughts to serve the story. I don’t use the story to serve my thoughts—it’s the other way around. Of course, I have a vision of liberation, of deliverance. But, this woman allowed me to explain my vision. For me, speaking is very important. We have to be free to say anything. Deliverance starts with freedom of speech. Without this, we can never, never, never be free. I made a film about the importance of speech in this kind of country, especially for a woman.

Here, you have confessional, you have psychoanalysis, but over there, we have nothing. They impose censorship, and there’s self-censorship, too. There’s a Taliban inside of us. The blue room in the film represents the woman’s blue burka. We’re inside a woman’s head, and there is a man. She has to kill the system. She has to kill this self-censorship. In Afghanistan, there is the system, the man, the mullah, who impose this censorship, but the woman self-imposes as well.

This poetess’ husband was a very good man. He was pushed by the poetess’ mother to kill her daughter. This is a problem. It’s not like all the men are bad and all the women are victims. No. To be free and true, you have to sacrifice some things. Kill some things, some systems.

So, about Syngue Sabour. It’s a legendary stone that you put in front of you, and you talk to the stone about your secrets, your suffering, until one day the stone shatters. Then, you’re free. Deliverance. When the stone shatters, this is violence, sacrifice. In the film, the woman has to kill her husband. She has to. The story is about being freed by words.

You’ve written a book and now directed a film version of this story. What can you do with the story in cinema that you couldn’t do in the book?
The first change was the language. I wrote the book in French, but the film is in Persian. In the film, it’s more about the woman’s relationship with the young soldier. Her body becomes a subject in the film, and it’s more erotic than the book.

There’s the perspective shift, too. In the book, it’s from the husband’s point of view, and in the film, it’s hers.
Yeah, of course. In the book, the narrator is inside of the blue room. He just listens to the story of the woman. In the movie, of course, we’re with the woman. The camera follows her outside of the room, it goes out on the street. We see flashbacks. These are very special. The present becomes the past.

In film, you can also show the complexity of characters. In a book, you have to explain. Pages and pages. In movies, you can show, all in the same shot, the contradictions of the characters. The contradiction in the woman’s movement, her words. All the time she’s in contradiction with herself, until the end of the movie, where she becomes one person. It’s a very complicated personality. From the beginning to the end, you can hear a change in her voice. In the beginning, it’s nasal. In the end, her voice comes from the belly.

Let’s talk about Golshifteh. She’s on-screen for virtually the entire movie, and she carries it very well.
It was not easy to find her. In the beginning, some producer asked me to shoot this film in English with great English actors, etc. Somebody proposed to me Penelope Cruz. (laughs)

Whoa!
This was impossible for me since the language was Persian. I casted so many Afghan actresses. I met her, and in the beginning I hesitated. I couldn’t take her immediately. I wanted to get to know her, talk to her. She’s very beautiful. It’s very dangerous, you know?

Why is that dangerous?
Beauty can be very dominant. I didn’t want her beauty to dominate the film. She’s very intelligent, and she’s a great artist and actress, too. At the beginning of the film, she’s not very beautiful. She couldn’t put on makeup. Slowly, she starts putting on makeup as the film goes on.

Your camera is very still when it’s inside the room, but it behaves differently outside.
I had a very good meeting with my DP, Thierry Arbogast, one of the best in the world. He knows me and how I work. Each shot is a painting for me. I have so many references—[Andrea] Mantegna, [Georges] de La Tour, and [Francisco] Goya. Persian miniatures are also a reference. I showed him these references, and he liked them. He said, “Okay, I have the references, but what do you want me to shoot?” I said, “Shoot the words.” He said, “What does that mean?” (laughs) It means your camera has to move with the words, not with the woman. The camera moves every time, but very slowly. It moves with the words of dialogue.

So, the dialogue dictates the camera, not the actions.
Right. Not the actions. When we film outside the room, it’s the actions [dictating the camera.]

So that’s the difference.
Yeah. It was really great to work with Thierry Arbogast. Sometimes, the images are very realistic, but other times they’re [painterly.] We also worked on the costumes and decorations, the lighting. But don’t forget, there are all these colors to the décor and the costumes. They make the pictures all together. It’s not only the camera. Everything. It’s the details.

Finally, tell me about the reception to the film in Muslim countries.
I was so surprised! This film was in the Abu Dhabi Film Festival. Golshifteh Farahani won the best actress award. It won the best film award in Tajikistan. In the Instanbul Film Festival, it won the human rights award. It’s good. In Afghanistan, it of course isn’t official. Maybe the fundamentalists didn’t see my film. (laughs)

One of my favorite things about film festivals is being able to interact with and pick the brains of the talented filmmakers behind great films you’ve just discovered. Yesterday, I got to do just that, with two incredible filmmakers. Stories We Tell (Sarah Polley) and The Patience Stone (Atiq Rahimi) are such fascinating, brilliant films that it was an honor and privilege to mine knowledge from the artists behind them. Both films are intensely personal works that shouldn’t be missed by anyone.

Stay tuned to Way Too Indie for the interviews, which we’ll be posting as the films’ release dates approach. In the meantime, here are my impressions of the films from SFIFF.

Stories We Tell

One of the beauties of Stories We Tell is uncovering its secrets as the film unfolds. I could reveal the secrets that await in Polley’s documentary, but that would be cruel. It’s integral that you go into the film cold, knowing little to nothing of the journey Polley has plotted out for us—it will all be worth it, trust me. All you need to know is this—so far, this is hands down my favorite film at SFIFF, which is already one of the best festivals I’ve attended. Now, mark your calendars for May 17th and go see the film.

If you need more convincing…read on. But let me be clear—my recommendation is that you experience the film in the moment, free of expectations.

Stories We Tell is a collection of recollections—stories—about Polley’s late mother, Diane. She interviews her colorful family and people who were close to Diane, and asks them to detail the family’s history, with the late matriarch as the focal point. Polley takes us on a journey to find the ‘true’ Diane, through multiple, unique memories. The families’ stories vary wildly and make you wonder—whose story is correct?

What makes Stories We Tell so special is that most documentaries are on an obsessive search for the truth while Polley instead poses the question—does the truth really exist? One thing is for sure—stories don’t exist until we create them. They’re born from an individual with a unique perspective. Polley’s mother was a different person to everyone she met—she was Mom to some, a friend to some, a lover to others. Which is the true Diane?

There are huge revelations to discover once you dive deep into the film that completely flip things upside down. Stories We Tell is a touching, one-of-a-kind work of art that is as universal as it is personal.

In the coming weeks we will have our full review plus an interview with director Sarah Polley here on Way Too Indie.

The Patience Stone

In an adaptation of director Atiq Rahimi’s novel of the same title, the beautiful Golshifteh Farahani (Body of Lies) plays an Afghani wife and mother whose husband has been left in a vegetable state after a bullet wound to the neck. She is on the brink of exhaustion, struggling to care for her family without the aid of her husband. As she buckles under the stresses of poverty, female oppression, and a war-torn Afghanistan, she begins to express her inner thoughts to her comatose husband, thoughts that she’d never dared vocalize before.

The Patience Stone’s title refers to a well-known Persian folktale, Syngue Sabour, about a stone into which you dump your frustrations, secrets, and woes until it eventually shatters. As Farahani’s expressions of agony to her husband slowly transform into expressions of desire and sexual frustration, she begins to free herself of the constraints imposed on her by Muslim culture.

Rahimi’s camera is weightless and adaptable, always placed strategically to convey the emotion of the scene. DP Thierry Arborgast uses color and light in almost magical ways, creating a lush atmosphere that sinks deep into your mind instantly. The scenes that take place outside of the husband’s room aren’t as effective as the powerful moments that transpire inside it. This is an important, beautiful story of liberation and individuality that may be too plodding for some, but rewards those who wait.