Robert J. Maxwell Man, does this sound like a loser -- a woman tends her unconscious husband at home and heaps all of her grief and sorrow on the poor guy's insensible bald head. A Lifetime Movie Network special, right? But no! I was caught up in it at once and couldn't break away. The wife is in her mid-thirties and, while by no means glamorized, has attractive features, striking. Somebody should paint her portrait. But nobody will because she, her older husband, and their two little girls live in a shabby apartment in some unnamed city in the Middle East. They depend on a water bearer, who may or may not show up because the dusty streets are dangerous, what with the militia on one side and the rebels on the other. They have no electricity either and live by lamplight at night, when they dare turn it on at all.If she goes out, she wears a mustard-colored burqa, which had always impressed me as a heavy garment made of something like canvas but is actually a thin, silken, all-around cape that's easily slipped back onto the shoulders. The woman has few friends -- one of her neighbors has gone round the bend because the men of her house have been slaughtered and hung upside down -- and her only relative is an older aunt who runs a whorehouse. There is a Mullah who knocks at the gate from time to time but he's extremely demanding and his predictions are wrong, so she turns him away.After the first two or three minutes, it lost any resemblance to a Lifetime Movie Network special. When the rebels (or the militia, I couldn't tell which) break into her apartment, she hides the wounded husband in a cubby hole to keep him from being killed. When the two armed and ugly men begin to take an interest in her she lies and claims to be one of her aunt's prostitutes, which disgusts the men to the extent that they leave her impure body alone. Well, except that the younger of the two -- an inexperience young man with a stutter -- returns later, flings a handful of bills on the floor, throws her down among them, pulls off their hampering undergarments, and achieves intromission and ejaculation at almost the same instant. "Is this your first time?", she asks wonderingly, and he nods.Thereafter he appears with some regularity desiring her services. He even secretly leaves a small bandanna-wrapped pile of food on their window sill. He's gotten to kind of like her, despite her professed profession. She rather appreciates his coming too -- not just for the money, which buys them food and water, but because he's so shy and inexperienced that she can guide him in foreplay and tell him what to do to give her pleasure. She begins to groom herself more carefully and, anticipating his arrival, she dresses in becoming clothes instead of her usual rags.That brings us back to the balding husband, flat on his back, a bullet in his neck, the result of a personal quarrel. She's keeping him alive through a tube running from a drip sack nailed to the wall -- just water and sugar. And just how did hubby treat her, even since he married her when she was fifteen? Like an animal. The more beans she spills, the more we realize how complicated, how adversarial, their relationship was. He'd never kissed her or fondled her. The woman's job was to produce children. After the first months of their marriage, his family began to think she was sterile, when in fact it was he who was shooting blanks. Consequently, she allowed herself to be secretly impregnated by two other men.The title, "The Patience Stone," refers to a legend in which a character confesses all her grief to a stone and when the stone finally shatters, she's freed of all her guilt and sorrow. It plays into the movie's climactic scene, which I won't describe.The acting is as good as it is in any Hollywood movie, the setting is evocative, and all the elements fit together properly. It's pretty well done. You're not likely to be bored.But I have to add two observations. The voices tell me to do it. I know two anthropologists who have done field work in Middle Eastern cultures. One told me that she'd met a middle-aged lady who had never had a period because she was constantly made pregnant by her husband. Another told me that the burqa is not a particularly good way of hiding a woman's beauty from the boys on the street corners, who sometimes whistled when a woman wearing a tent passed by. They muttered, "Wow -- look at those FEET!" And why not? The feet are the windows of the soul. So it is written.

Rajat Singhal One of those very rare masterpieces that come as sheer satisfactions after years of wait! The whole movie reveals itself with a poetic subtleness of sorts... The innocence, the earthly beauty and the strength that Farahani's character in the film demanded are so exquisitely conveyed by her. There is a 'Halo' that surrounds Farahani's character throughout. The metaphorical references used to convey the broader meaning of the plot are simply magical in their appeal. The complexity of human relations and how at times they become so dependent on our social hierarchies and cultural structures, that its almost a magic to sanely come out of those. From the time the film opens, the gravity of the characters pull you deep into the film and are very difficult to let go of, even long after the movie ends..!! Persian and Afghan cinema has always that 'literary' kind of capacity which broadens ones perspectives, however this one is at a whole new level. Such work is a rarity in most of the other modern Asian cinema.. Its quite amazing that this insightful art work come from one of the most politically disturbed places of our world..

dipesh parmar Atiq Rahimi's 'The Patience Stone' tells the story of an Afghan woman, played by Golshifteh Farahani, in war-torn Kabul. She keeps watch over her comatose husband (Hamid Djavadan). She's left alone to care for herself and her two daughters, with little money and virtually no family support apart from an aunt.We learn of a life of torment for the young wife, before and during her marriage, and who is forced to take drastic measures just to survive and continue caring for her husband. Part confessional, part therapeutic, we see the wife talking openly and frankly to her husband about her past. One particular story relating to her wedding is both hilarious and tragic.Her frustrations turn to anger and hysteria, she becomes more emboldened in her thoughts as she knows this could be her only chance to be so brazenly honest. Ironically, this is the closest the woman comes to a happy relationship with her husband, who has been absent whether he has been with her or not. Its as if she is carrying the hopes of women in Afghanistan, railing against the oppression of men which is symbolised by her husband. His paralysis allows her to blossom, by the end of the film we see a changed woman.Exquisitely shot by Thierry Arbogast, 'The Patience Stone' is a wonderful study of a woman under immense restraint. Rahimi takes some big risks, as does Farahani, by breaking social, cultural, sexual and religious taboos in a film full of controversy. Farahani is exceptional, revealing the stress points of her character with tenderness and honesty. Her wonderfully poetic voice, and the way she tells the story, combined with such an expressive face, leaves a lasting impression on you.

corrosion-2 The Patience Stone is based on an old Persian fable about a stone to whom one can confide all one's problems and worries. Here though the stone is an Afghan man, reduced to a vegetable state by the war. His wife (Golshifteh Farahani) uses his inability to comprehend and talk back to tell him things that she would not dare to say otherwise. With his disability she's been left to feed herself, her two children and continue buying medicine to keep her husband alive. The only job available for an Afghan woman in her desperate situation it seems is prostitution.Atiq Rahimi has directed from his own novel. He wrote the script with the renowned veteran screen writer Jean-Claude Carrierre. It is, I feel, a story best suited to theatre with its long monologues. The film however, belongs to and is carried by Golshifteh Farahani's magnificent performance. This is a very tough role where she has to, for most part, talk to a body lying motionless and unresponsive on the ground, unable to engage in any dialogue. A poetic film which is not for all tastes but which will richly reward those who appreciate its form and messages.