Why you can trust GamesRadar+
The story behind Babak Payami's plodding drama is perhaps more interesting than the movie itself. Alarmed that the film would damage the reputations of Muslims, authorities in Tehran confiscated the negatives. Payami's response was to assemble his own digital-video version.
Set in a village near the Afghanistan/ Iran border, the film explores the negative influence of fundamentalism upon the lives of ordinary people. It begins when the local executioner (Kamal Naroui) is ordered to spare a young woman (Maryam Moghaddam), whose crime remains unclear. So far, so uncomplicated. Well, at least until the mullah insists that the man must marry his intended victim, sleep with her and then kill her because "an executed virgin will go to heaven".
An intriguing premise, perhaps, but Payami's approach is far too deliberate, precise camerawork recording the almost wordless action. Such restraint would be admirable if it didn't have the side effect of disengaging the viewer.
The Total Film team are made up of the finest minds in all of film journalism. They are: Editor Jane Crowther, Deputy Editor Matt Maytum, Reviews Ed Matthew Leyland, News Editor Jordan Farley, and Online Editor Emily Murray. Expect exclusive news, reviews, features, and more from the team behind the smarter movie magazine.
Harry Potter director's adaptation of a hugely popular crime novel sets main cast, including a former James Bond
No Rest for the Wicked creative director puts most of the ARPG's poor reviews down to a localization bug that stopped a lot of Chinese and Japanese text from showing
Final Fantasy 14 devs more likely "to do something light again" for its next project as "you can kinda tell" Yoshi-P is "done" with Final Fantasy 16's "dark fantasy"