Reviews: RottenTomatoes (89%), IMDB (7.7), Wikipedia, Amazon, Roger Ebert.

Watch online: NetFlix.

Similar movies: romance.

Summary: A beautiful movie! A simple minded Persian boy (Latif) falls madly in love with a young Afghan refugee girl. Her name is Baran, which means rain. To feed her family of six, the girl has to work in harsh conditions because her dad was badly injured at a construction site. Out of sheer compassion (not to impress her or win her over), Latif goes to great lengths to alleviate her suffering.

The two main characters hardly talk to each other. Everything is unsaid. In the entire movie, the girl never speaks a sentence. She is shy and quiet but approves of him.

Some romantic scenes made me smile. In one scene, Latif goes to the spot where the girl used to feed pigeons. He finds her hair clip with a single strand of hair caught in it :) In another scene, when he is looking for her, he meets an old cobbler who perchance remarks, "From the hot fire of being apart, comes the flame that burns the heart." :) The last scene highlights the beauty and ephemerality of all life experiences: the boy smiles happily when he sees an imprint of Baran's shoe in mud. Then it starts raining :) Baran means rain.

Other than the love story, the movie is sobering. It reminded me of harsh living conditions that so many of us endure daily. I feel blessed, very blessed.