Secret Ballot (2001)

Great Film overall

Very interesting film. Was caught on the premise when seeing the trailer but unsure as to what the outcome would be for the showing. As it turns out, it was a very good film.

Unshakable, witty and deeply felt, the film will be paying emotional dividends for a long, long time.

This is ultimately a movie about the very bad things that can happen when we don't address our unease, when we just try to brush it off, whether that's to fit in or to preserve our self-image.

Last week, my daughter and I viewed Osama and tonight Secret Ballot. Both impressed us greatly. Secret Ballot is a sweet movie about two people fulfilling a duty—one eagerly, the other reluctantly—and growing to know and appreciate each other in the process. Reminds me a bit of The African Queen. The cinematography is breath-taking and I just wish I could have viewed it on a large screen. The social commentary vis a vis the place of women—e.g. not in a cemetery—is presented sympathetically. I liked the scene where the soldier tells the girl to pour water for his hand washing and she does so without question—like automatically. The old man choosing to vote for God and the soldier, in the end, choosing to vote for the girl were delightful. My daughter is a middle school teacher and plans to show this film to her students. That is a high accolade for a sensitive film.

After sitting through this film, I have to wonder if the many accolades and awards this movie has received are a case of the Emperor's New Clothes; i.e., it's Iranian, so it must be good no matter what it really looks like. The film plods along at an agonizingly slow pace. Many shots are several minutes in length with little movement. But instead of making a point, these scenes just feel as if the Director was trying to find a way to stretch out the film. (The filmaker's equivalent of using 14 point font on a term paper.) At one point a scene with significance for future scenes is shot from such a distance that the people are mere specks and you are left spending the next ten minutes trying to figure the major plot hole this long distance scene just created.Nearly all the scenes amount to obvious, and vaguely preachy metaphors about the importance of voting. Instead of letting a scene speak for itself, the woman vote collector has to make some preachy statement every time. Even more grating, the soldier accompanying the vote collector speaks ever single line in a monotone as if he is reading his lines off a cue card. This film is billed as a comedy, yet there is nothing remotely funny in the 100 minutes of the film.Perhaps much of the humor and nuances of language are lost in a poor translation from Farsi. However, after seeing and being highly impressed by "Kandahar", I tend to think this is just not a good film.Save your money and 100 minutes of your life for something more worthwhile than this film.

For what it's worth, if I'd been head of programming, I wouldn't have shown this film around 2 p.m., even though these days it seems we just should be glad to see this sort of film on TV in the first place. Set your video recorders if it's shown again. I know I will, if only because I missed the first 20 minutes.Secret Ballot (or Raye Makhfi) is the story of a woman who travels to an island to get the inhabitants' votes. A soldier is told to accompany the election agent while she does her job. At first he's surprised to find out she's a woman, but they learn to appreciate each other.Even though the political and feminist points of the film are powerful, in the end it's the visual style that's the biggest reason one should stay watching. There's a lot of candy you can treat your eyes to, from the camera work to the nearly surrealistic scenes (the ballot box dropping, the traffic lights).Directed by Babak Payami and from an idea by the legendary Iranian director Mohsen Makhmalbaf, Secret Ballot may lack essential elements to be called a masterpiece, but it's a very good movie with visual flair and a message that should be heard. It should be seen.

"Secret Ballot" certainly takes its time with each scene, but is quite satisfying by the end. It is as close to surrealism as I've seen recently. The music during the credits is beautiful.