2003 · drama · iranian

Dancing in the Dust

Directed by Asghar Farhadi · 1h 35m · 2003

When forced to divorce his wife by family and social pressure because her mother is a prostitute, Nazar works double shifts to pay back the loan he took out for his impulsive wedding and to pay some ongoing restitution to his sweet jilted bride, Reyhaneh. When he falls behind in the payments he flees the police and ends up in the desert with an uncommunicative old man who catches poisonous snakes for their venom. These two are forced to coexist in the desert, because Nazar is unwilling to return to the city and wants to catch snakes to make enough money to settle his debts. His verbose, chattering annoys the reticent old man until Nazar's life is endangered.

Our read: Dancing in the Dust (2003) reads as a sombre, steady, grounded drama · iranian entry — measured in intensity, intimate in scope, measured in temperature, ambivalent in outlook.