Jess666’s review published on Letterboxd:
I loved the intimacy of this film so much, even as it twists into a horror of religious morality that left me uneasy.
On the topic of liberation, director and author of the novel, Atiq Rahimi, says the first steps towards being free "is to be free to say anything".
That's very clear in his treatment of the young woman. This film is not just her confession, but our witnessing to her liberation from silence. To be free to speak her truths and react truthfully. This is executed so masterfully, I could have listened to her dialogues for another hour.
However, the ending is quite a stark shift, and one I struggle to reconcile with. The young woman's performance throughout the film is a dramatic variation on a soliloquy—she has a reason to speak her inner dialogue aloud as diegetic monologue—that is nonetheless in the environment of a hyper-realistic setting of a crumbling city under constant attack. The film is taken by the viewer, I believe, as a film rooted in realism with dramatic writing. And yet, as the film progresses into its final sequences, something <u>uncomfortable</u> begins surfacing in the film's intent. It seems to be leading the young woman's development into a culminating point of immorality brought upon herself by her actions. And as the film closes, this seems confirmed. Rahimi seems to be not only interested in the young woman's personal liberation and soulful freedoms, but also using that narrative to portray a cautionary tale of the concurrent consequences of spiritual degradation and moral depravity.
Are we meant to empathize with the young woman in the end?
Are we meant to rationalize her actions (as I obviously did)?
The final moment leads me to doubt this.