When Marziyah Meshkini, wife of Iranian director Mohsen Makhmalbaf, travelled to Kabul as assistant director to her daughter, Samira, she found children in prison living alongside their convicted mothers. This formed the basis of her second feature, set shortly after the Allied intervention in Afghanistan.
Its central characters are a five-year-old girl and her brother who live on the streets of Kabul. Their father is an imprisoned Taliban member and at night they stay with their mother, cruelly incarcerated for marrying another when she thought her husband was dead.
During the day, the children scavenge through rubbish to find something to sell. They save a dog from certain death at the hands of other children who think it's a Western dog and so should die, and it becomes their inseparable companion.
When new regulations bar them from the prison at night, they embark on a series of failed robberies in the hope of going to jail and seeing their mother again. But even a screening of De Sica's Bicycle Thieves can't teach them how to get caught.
It's well shot, highly sympathetic and typical of Iranian films in thrall to the neo-realism of films such as De Sica's masterpiece. You do get the feeling that you've seen something like it before.
But immersed within its charm and sincerity, there are a few sharp political shafts. "Better wave at them," sister says to brother as an American tank passes through the streets, "It is less dangerous that way."
Stray Dogs
Cert: 12A
