RyothChatty ridiculous rating

Infamousta brilliant actors, brilliant editing

Senteur As somebody who had not heard any of this before, it became a curious phenomenon to sit and watch a film and slowly have the realities begin to click into place.

Staci Frederick Blistering performances.

arakitai I saw the movie today on the IFC channel. I identified with the characters as I myself grew up in a Soviet Bloc country--where it is not uncommon for a soldier to get posted in complete isolation for years.Some might think of the soldier guarding the election official as a simpleton. I think the guy just spent too much time bored out of his mind and things slowed down for him. It took him a while to get the good old gray matter churning again. Plus, the guy was a hick.Anyhow, it was a funny, sometimes sardonic movie. You really get to like the characters towards the end.Cheers!

KuRt-33 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.

Howard Schumann On Election Day on a remote island in the Persian Gulf, an airplane drops a parachute containing a ballot box filled with registration materials and ballots. A soldier (Cyrus Abidi) retrieves the material but is astonished when he discovers that the official who arrives to run the election is a young woman (Nassim Abdi). The official (unnamed) is an outspoken idealist who believes that voting can give citizens the opportunity to make a difference, while the soldier does not see any value in it. Secret Ballot by Babak Payami is a lightweight but charming Iranian film about the frustrations an election official encounters while attempting to collect votes in a place where there is no tradition of democracy. In this case, the official's problems are compounded by the fact that she is a woman in a male-dominated society and must combat ideas about what is proper for women to be doing.As the soldier drives her around the island in his jeep, the quest for votes leads to one absurd situation after another. The unlikely pair meets a man running across the desert that the soldier suspects of being a smuggler and has to persuade him to vote by pointing his gun at him. They must also contend with a truckload of women and a single man who insists on casting all of their votes for them. In other situations, women in a nomadic camp refuse to vote without permission of the men who are out fishing, and a Muslim at a solar energy site will vote for only one candidate -- GOD -- who isn't even on the ballot. In one of the more surreal episodes, the soldier refuses to drive past a red traffic light standing in the middle of the desert even though he knows it is broken and will never turn green. Simplistic ideas about the value of democracy are tested against the reality that the islanders must face. One potential voter asks the official, "What do you know about us and our problems? We have to hide our feelings here." In another case, women cannot vote because they are forbidden to look at the photographs of the male candidates. Another time, the official cannot register the votes of men at a cemetery because women are forbidden to enter the sacred ground. It is not clear if the film was made to promote democracy or to show it as being ludicrous. Apparently the Iranian officials took it seriously because the film was banned in Iran. What is clear is that unless an electorate is informed and feels a stake in the outcome, the process of voting is a sham and, as the protagonists in Secret Ballot found out, cannot be imposed with high minded speeches or a gun pointed at the voter's head.

stensson Iranian films proceeds to work within the system altogether with the amount of system attacks that might be aloud in that country. That means that the directors have to work with small means. You've got to be attentive as audience, which is rather easy, because the tempo is slow.This is the story of a female election official, who tries to make the reluctant citizens on a small Iranian island to go voting. It isn't easy in a society there someone wants to vote for God and the women aren't aloud to look on photographs of male candidates. There are few real characters here, mainly types, and that also goes for the election official and her accompanying soldier. The most interesting question is what kind of society Iran really is, when you have to be so careful in your films.