Sundance Film Festival 2024: In the Land of Brothers (World Cinema Dramatic Competition) | Review
Presented in the World Cinema Dramatic Competition, director Alireza Ghasemi and Raha Amirfazli’s Sundance entry is a sprawling, emotionally rich, quietly devastating study of Afghan refugees in Iran.
A three-chaptered tale of refugees struggling in a place where they thought they belonged gets a weighty emotional punch in the duo Alireza Ghasemi and Raha Amirfazli‘s debut feature In the Land of Brothers (Dar Sarzamin-e Barâdar), which is playing in the World Cinema Dramatic Competition at the Sundance Film Festival 2024. The film revolves around an extended Afghan family over the course of thirty years, set in different cities and seasons in Iran, home to 5 million refugees from Afghanistan.
The first chapter is set in the snowy city of Bojnord in 2001. It is composed of unlighted wintry-mood shots by Farshad Mohammadi, implying the harsh reality of the conflict taking place so close to their life, and tackles police brutality and the system that gains power by manipulating its people. This includes promising teenage student Mohammad (Mohammad Hosseini), who is captured by two police officers – one of them is played by Hajeer Moradi, who delivers a presence of such forbidding strength that when his features soften even for a moment, we are distressed. Mohammad and some other refugees (most of them in their 30s) are taken to tidy up the office. He doesn’t tell his father about what happened, not even to Leila (Hamideh Jafari), the girl he cares for. It seems like Leila didn’t go to school, and Mohammad always helps her learn by imparting knowledge to her on the tomato plantation (where the family works) at night when all the family members are sleeping.
On the very next day, the police came again to take Mohammad, even though he had his card with him this time. He ended up affixing plaster in an unfinished bathroom. You cannot expect the violence shown in this film to be the same as you can find in Michel Franco‘s work like New Order, for example, but the suffering in In the Land of Brothers is painfully palpable.
In the first chapter of In the Land of Brothers, the actual effect lies in the remnants of leaving this story without a concrete end, sure to leave viewers purposefully rattled and wrathful. However, wait until Leila takes the stage in chapter two, ten years later. The poor woman now works as a maid for the Behnam family in the port city of Bandar Anzali and is happily married to Hossein, who also works for the family. But an unimaginable tragedy strikes her, leaving us with a whole new emotional direction and a devastating impact on powerless people who cannot raise their voices.
In the last chapter, 20 years after the event in Bojnord, we follow Leila’s oldest brother Qasem (Bashir Nikzad), who bears the weight of his family’s sacrifices. Although less centered, the conclusions make this an essential viewing because of how it uses visual storytelling to evoke empathy and understand every aspect of the ethics of humanity.
The film powerfully portrays the institution’s unkind treatment of refugees and their struggle with daily displacement. It is demanding in its multi-layered subject matter and thought-provoking character study. It’s a brutal, devastating study of loss; the final heartbreaking shot in the second chapter alone establishes this film as one of the boldest swings to ever happen to a character that I’ve seen in recent memory. In the Land of Brothers is truly unshakable and will go down as one of the most highlighted international films of the year. A must-see.
In the Land of Brothers is a co-production between France’s Furyo Films, Ghasemi & Amirfazli’s production company Limited Circle, and Amsterdam-based BALDR Film, with the support of Cinema Tehran and Avidia. Paris sales outlet Alpha Violet is handling its world sales.
