This movie was so-so. It had it's moments, but wasn't the greatest.

Fun premise, good actors, bad writing. This film seemed to have potential at the beginning but it quickly devolves into a trite action film. Ultimately it's very boring.

I really wanted to like this movie. I feel terribly cynical trashing it, and that's why I'm giving it a middling 5. Actually, I'm giving it a 5 because there were some superb performances.

By the time the dramatic fireworks start popping off, each one feels earned.

What is so wonderful about Frontier Blues, and also Babak Jalali's previous short, "Heydar: An Afghan in Tehran", is that he is showing us a view of Iran that most of us here have never been exposed to— a perspective free of politics and chaos in a part of Iran that most of us could only see in photo books. And while those photographs reveal the beauty and majesty of northern Iran, they cannot reveal the humanity that Babak is exploring in his film. There are no photos that could capture that monotony of every day life for Alam who works on a chicken farm but who is desperately in love with a girl he has never spoken to. Or Hassan, the village idiot, who's best friend is his donkey and his uncle Kazem who owns a small clothing store where nothing quite fits any one who comes in. And the minstrel who tells the audience of his wife, stolen from him by a man in a green Mercedes years ago.The people that inhabit Frontier Blues are settled but lost. They long for something better or long for what they could have had, but they continue to live and work every day. The majestic beauty of northern Iran is merely a backdrop, one that doesn't impress them anymore the way they do outsiders. They are stoic and laconic men, maybe more so than if they were not on camera, but in some ways, that is the point. Jalali is looking deeply into them, which often requires a bit of silence and focus, but what he finds is truly beautifully strange.

I saw this film at Locarno last year. It's an interesting film and a definite departure from the standard Iranian art-house fare which is refreshing. It's beautifully shot and the melange of humour and melancholy works well. First time director Babak Jalali offers us a look into the world of his native hometown in northern Iran on the border of Turkmenistan, which we would never have seen otherwise. It's a meditative, stylistic portrait of 4 men getting on with their lives, with nowhere to go and not much to look forward to. It does not fall into the trap of clichéd looks at the Middle East and manages instead to provide a heartfelt look at the human condition. It's opening in London this week and I would definitely try and catch it as it's the sort of film you have to see on the big screen.

This is a portrait of a border province. It is not only in vast Iran that the border lands exist in a sleepy dizziness, forgotten and forlorn by government or God. I adore crossing borders on foot or by local train because of this melancholic mood that border areas around the world instil. Yet, this film shows a point of view from the locals - for whom being on the margins does not feel like a fancy adventure at all.The people here feel stuck - and stale. There is no future to look up to, no linear time, just repetitive dailiness. However, the film undertakes to make us share into their feelings personally, and succeeds quite well! Long still scenes - almost photographs, hopeless landscape, no events (indeed, no weddings or funerals), subdued emotions and simple talk. A story is made by tiny details only.

In remote Gorgan (Iran's northern border with Turkmenistan), the film tells us the story of 4 men, of whom, 3 have dreams of girls/women/marriage/reunion. It portrays a society where women fled frequently from their families for richer men, and where men feel they are the authority of their families and they are responsible for the younger ones, e.g. letting the donkey go. Here, men cling on to their dreams - keeping the donkey as a pet; ringing other people up randomly to speak to girls; choosing only one size / design per piece of clothing for his shop; learning English so as to relocate to a place with better living standards; not wishing to speak or play his musical instrument but when stirred up, vents his frustration profusely. Here, weddings and funerals seldom occur: it is uneventful. Yet, outsiders want to capture images not of how the place is really like, but of what they perceive of this place - nomadic, pastoral, rustic, etc. But they will never be able to seize that most natural and authentic side of these people.