Customer Reviews

Secret Ballot

5 star:		(9)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(5)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

This film is easily misunderstood, but even those who do not fully understand it, will enjoy it and find it "sweet", "charming" or "gentle".

The storyline is simple. A box drops out of the sky close to the guardpost on an island in some Islamic country. Half an hour later a small boat appears, a woman gets off and orders the guard to accompany her to go and get votes on ballot day. Why is this easy to misunderstand? Because the film communicates so much in a very simple way.

Firstly, it is a comedy - not the outward belly-laugh kind, but the inward warm-smile kind. Every single situation the two chief characters experience is absurd. Take for instance the scene where there is a red robot in the middle of the desert, without even a clear intersection. Also look out for the ballot agent literally not leaving any stone unturned to find the votes! Where have you ever heard of the ballot box going to the voters, instead of the voters going to the ballot box? One voter insists on Allah as a write-in candidate to vote for! One can go on and on - but the tone of the film is so down-to-earth and realistic that you almost miss the tongue-in-cheek humour. Most people I have spoken to actually thought it was supposed to be totally realistic!

The film is also stunning social and political commentary. It raises questions on democracy (how can somebody who do not know you, your community or your situation "represent" you? What good is democracy if it makes absolutely no difference to your life?). It raises questions about gender discrimination, especially the role and capabilities of a woman (the guard insists at the beginning, embarrassed to be ordered around by a woman, "I thought you should have been a man"!). It raises questions about false deadlines - the fallacy of getting everything that needs to be done, done within an unrealistic deadline. It raises questions on religion (who do you depend on, God or the government?).

The film is also a human drama. The two main caharacters, despite their absurd situation, are depicted as very rounded individuals and during the day their respect, understanding and liking for each other is gradually enhanced. Once again this is very subtly done: note the change of tone in their talking to each other and the subject matter, note where they are sitting in the vehicle as the day progresses. At the end of the day, the guard wants to vote for the ballot agent!

To crown it all, it gives the uninitiated some better understanding of Islamic culture, idiosincracies and prejudice. Moving too slow? No way - you need a little time to savour what is happening. Outward action may be restricted, but through all the above themes there is a rich tapestry of events which you can enjoy.

The film accomplishes much with remarkably little special effects, it is gentle and warm and it leaves you with the feeling that you have seen something special, yet you don't know quite why you feel that way. Keep the above comments in mind and I am sure you will enjoy it tremendously - whatever you do, give it a go!

Let's talk about the DVD itself. The only thing special is that you have control of what language to see the subtitles...that's about it...and scene selections.

Now, this movie is so through provoking and powerful. It is about a women who is sent by the government to get people to vote. She has her problems from the moment she steps of the boat with the person who is to escort but she shows herself as a powerful and intelligent woman and simply deals with the matter in that fashion. She is the off to find people to vote. However she find herself dealing with many issues of the people. For exmaple: a group of women come to vote and the man states he will do the voting for them. Instead of getting upset and losing image, she simply explains that every citizen has the right to vote on the own and have their own opinion. Something, we westerners take for granted. She is also confronted by people who are against voting and she finds herself breaking some of the religious rules to try to get them to vote. I won't give anymore away. However the character grows in this film and we learn so much about the people of Iran. The values, customs, and religion.

I recommend this movie for those who want to sit back and enjoy a movie that really takes you into the mind and heart of a culture

The tranquility of a desert dawn is rudely interrupted by aircraft engines. A parachuted box varies the mundane task of two soldiers watching for smugglers. With the arrival of a boat dispatching a young woman on the beach, nothing will ever be the same. Democracy has arrived on an Iranian island - wearing a chador and sturdy walking shoes.

Few films have started in as low a key as this one. Fewer still have built a story of such intense human realism from such a gentle beginning. The soldier, shocked at the arrival of a woman as the Election Officer, is reluctant to be commandeered as her escort. She has the power of The Law on her side, however. They must tour the island, collecting votes, and return to camp to meet the boat at 5:00 o'clock - "You're ordered to escort me".

The ensuing day is marked by clashes of personality, background, role and purpose. The soldier's job is to catch law-breakers. That covers just about anyone whose behaviour he can't immediately comprehend. A man running across the sands is a voter to one and a fleeing criminal to the other. Which is he? That he votes doesn't settle the question. Voters come in all shapes, sizes, dress - and attitudes - "even smugglers can vote", she says. A group of women voters are delivered in a giant dump truck - but they speak a dialect the Election Officer doesn't know. Although the slate is ten "approved candidates" [approved by who?], one man bypasses them to vote for his own favourite. Others don't want to take the time - "voting doesn't catch fish".

The Election Officer has her own answers to these complaints. With an enthusiasm a Britannica salesman would envy, she sells democracy to the island's residents. And a few others. She rises to every objection: "If you vote, you can plan your life better". Illiterate voters who can't read the names are encouraged to "vote for the photographs". Her intensity is palpable - would there were more like her here! At the end, there is only one vote left to obtain. The scene resolves the entire film while resolving nothing. There should be a sequel, but it will never be filmed.

Payami's film is almost indescribable in its stark beauty. The purity of the desert provides an excellent background to the intense human story. There are many levels to cope with as you watch it unfold. These are people distrustful of what they can't grasp, control or understand. An election has remote meaning to a culture unused to its vagaries. They are far from ignornant, but they are an isolated community. Payami offers no issues, parties, ambitions either distant nor local in the election. Survival, the daily struggle on the island, is the key. Payami highlights the protagonists when needed, but sets them against the changing background as the Election Officer and the Soldier tour the island. The foreground changes, also, as the Officer and Soldier work out their roles. Highly recommended. [stephen a. haines - Ottawa, Canada]

"Secret Ballot" starts with a unique visual image: a tiny speck of airplane's shadow and something dropping from it, against the beautiful sunrise. And that something plays the central role of this mildly amusing, low-keyed political satire. But that is not all that you will see in this Iran-Italy production.

"Secret Ballot" is about an incongrous pair: one laconic soldier guarding somewhere on the sleepy coast of an unnamed island in Iran, and a talkative female civil servant coming there to collect votes for the election. The latter has to complete her job by 5 p.m., and the soldier, to his great dismay, is ordered to accompany her around the island.

The small tour is filled with episodes concerning their task. and not many islanders are friendly to her. Or they just don't understand her job. In spite of her lofty idealism and unstoppable energy, her job turns out nothing smooth because of the differences of belief, custom, and language. And so many unexpected things happen to her -- one of the votes is even hidden under a rock.

To see her doing at best (still not without disillusion about democracy in general) makes you see the point of the film clear, but there is another asset to the film, an underplayed romantic aspect between the two leads. Watching over her never-ending struggle, the soldier, who was at first very hostile, gradually changes his attitudes towards her. As the appointed time for her to leave comes near, we also understand his feelings to her in his words, which are in themselves very few. Don't miss that point, and that's why a slightly surprise ending gives the entire film more pathos than you expect. No longer this island is a sleepy place for the soldier.

As is often the case with Iranian films, "Secret Ballot" is slow-paced and would require your patience. In case you feel sleepy (I confess I did), you might know the following facts about the film. The two leads are in fact non-professionals, and the heroine Nassim Abidi is a student majoring in journalism in college. The director managed to persuade her to join in the film despite the great reluctance on her side. This episode may sound unbelievable when you see her very natural acting on the screen, which is one of the merits of teh film. The soldier's player Cyrus Abidi is recruited for the role in the shopping center in the Kish Island where the film was shot. Actually, it was after the original person who was to play the role bailed out.

The film is, as I said, shot on the beautiful Kish island on the Persian Gulf, and the island is known as one of the resort places of Iran. If you want to see more of this beautiful place, see another Iranian film "The Day I Became a Woman."

All in all, "Secret Ballot" is an amusing and thought-provoking film. The director Babak Payami, who was born in Iran but had lived in Canada for nearly twenty years until 1998, has a knack for realizing the atomosphere of the place. The film's long sequence may be called overused, and the running time should be shorter than now, "Secret Ballot" is a charming film, especially because of its bitter-sweet ending. Don't follow the story; watch this one very slowly.

In the first scene of SECRET BALLOT, a large box is parachuted from of a plane flying out of the sunrise. It lands on an Iranian island, on the beach guarded by two soldiers. These are apparently the only two armed representatives of authority in the place, and "guard" may be an overstatement. Catching smugglers is their assignment, but they do it with only one bed, one rifle, and one timepiece between them. In any case, inside the crate are a ballot box and instructions for the soldiers to expect the arrival of an elections agent at 8:00 AM. They're further ordered to escort the agent around the island and collect votes in that day's national election.

A half-hour late, a small motorboat lands on the beach, and off clambers the agent - a modern young woman complete with chador and a missionary zeal for her job, which must be completed by 5:00 PM. At first, the soldier on duty is reluctant to do the agent's bidding. After all, she's a woman, and this is Islamic Iran. However, after she waves the undeniable fact of "his orders" in his face, off they bounce in a jeep to harvest ballots for the box. The film's screenplay does not provide names for the agent or the soldier, but they're played by Nassim Abdi and Cyrus Abidi respectively.

The humor and pace of SECRET BALLOT is much like the island itself - sleepy. In fact, you may need a large java to stay focused on the English subtitles of the Farsi dialogue. But the film isn't without a gentle charm, especially if you're curious about the world around you and you've not been to this corner of it.

The soldier is, to put it charitably, a stolid, unimaginative sort. But he does know the pulse of the island. During the day's rounds, the agent, her idealism, and the "approved list" of candidates (from which each voter must select two) are confronted by the realities of the local electorate, e.g., woman who won't vote without instructions from their men, men who won't vote because their candidates aren't on the list, and a religious fundamentalist who insists on Allah as a write-in candidate. At day's end, the agent and the soldier see each other in a different light, and each is the better for it. We first suspect the change in perhaps the movie's most humorous scene when the soldier halts the jeep at a red light in the middle of nowhere with no other moving vehicles in sight.

SECRET BALLOT has no eye-popping special FX, white-knuckle action, belly laughs, or stunning dramatic moments. But I'm giving it a marginal thumbs-up because it's a small window on a world much different than my own, and I appreciate the perspicacity of the view.

This movie is a very realistic look at a culture most of us don't know, and maybe don't care to. If you are looking for action, forget this movie. Special effects, forget it, but, if you are like me, and would like a peek into a culture that I know nothing about but want to, this is a movie for you. It is such a great story. Modern, but still fully clothed and veiled, woman has a government job to go to rural areas and collect votes. She is guarded by a "by the book" soldier who often finds her silly ( at first ) as they travel to places where only a handful of people live, her struggle to convince people of the "power of voting" which is all of thier rights, and his to behave like a soldier while accompaning her leads to some very subtle but nice humor. There are alot of long uncut scenes of drivng down dusty roads and boats cutting through water but to me it helped me get caught up in the feel of the story. After this movie i feel so lucky to be educated and have access to technology and world events. The people in this story do not. their life would seem so boring to us but they know no other. Oh yes, there is a scene with a traffic signal in the middle of the desert that is hysterical to me. Thanks for reading!

Billed as a comedy but actually just as much, or more, a drama, something I usually find wrecks movies I got expecting to be a comedy, diluting the humorous parts to the point of impotence and failing to work well on a dramatic level. However, this one of the rare 'dramedies' that hits its mark full on. "Secret Ballot" is an Iranian-made movie about the fledgling Iranian democracy emerging (the film, incidentally, was made before this year's democratic setbacks with the summary disqualifacations of most reform-minded candidates), with a female elections official (wonderfully played by Nassim Abdi) making the rounds with a mobile ballot box to collect votes from residents in a remote region of the Iranian coast and its nearby islands, with Cyrus Abidi as the soldier grudgingly compelled to drive her on her rounds. The humor is light but rich, the drama elements subtle but highly effective, and both raise up some issues without being politically overbearing. The terrain is beautiful and majestic, captured perfectly by the unique cinematography/editing style that uses a number of long, real-time shots with very few cutaways. When a little boat heads out to the larger fishing vessel a few hundred feet offshore it's done in real-time; you can see people getting on and off the smaller boat, faintly seeing them moving around on the the big boat, before the little boat begins to return to shore in the same shot. It might sound tedious but it's not, it just lets you experience the atmosphere and the ocean waves perfectly. The election worker is bright and full of optimism, either oblivious to the distrust of the the system she's working for or utterly refusing to be brought down by it, so steadfast is she in her belief that she's helping everybody move together towards a better future. It's the Middle Eastern Amelie! The soldier at first appears to be the portrait of sullen apathy, but very quickly it shows through that this is an intelligent individual, bogged down in quiet frustration of a life and a system that haven't worked out the way he would have liked. A large number of other interesting characters come and go for varying lengths of time, and it's up to the viewer to determine if there's also a subtle but powerful romantic angle here too.

This is the first Iranian movie I've ever seen, and it's left me wanting to sample more, from different genres too, as well as movies from some other countries in the Middle East, both the Arabic countries and Israel. Very, very refreshing to see the Middle East in a vein other than what you see on the news, which seems to be just real-life violence and tragedy, while the rest gets ignored. A recommended buy.

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What a wonderful, charming little film!

And it's very, very funny!

I loved it and laughed out loud many, many times. My 20-year old son didn't get it, though. I suppose many people won't get it, but that's OK.

For them there's Weekend at Bernies.

Secret Ballot is serene in its approach, but bitingly sardonic in its message.

The film opens with these two "guards" with the Iranian army. We don't really know what they are "guarding" (against smuddlers, maybe?). They live on a beach... they split 12-hour shifts... they sleep on the bottom bunk... the bed is outdoors on the beach... the old jeep is in the tent... the government airdrops the ballot box... and the ballot official is a woman....

One of the guards must drive her around the island collecting ballots.

It's theater of the absurd in the persian gulf.

Wonderful.

And, best of all, rated G!

Try it, and give it time to settle in.

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Personally, I enjoy "slow" movies- you get to savor the atmosphere and the characters- why the rush all the time? I watched this over Winter Break along with many other foreign movies and this is the one that really has really stayed with me.
Take an evening and just sit back, relax, and enjoy this quiet little film that steps into the lives of the inhabitants of an isolated island on election day. Watch the main characters grow as they encounter new attitudes and ideas.

This film is very funny. The political point is clear. The only thing I see other reviewers expressing disapointment about is "it's slow pace". This is not a Hollywood film, which is based on the philosophy that if more than 30 seconds passes without something "happening", it is already boring. The only problem with that philosophy is usually the directors find themselves doing something, anything, every 30 seconds until 2 hours of really nothing has passed you by. This film does not make that mistake. Some westerners are upset by this.

What some call "slow pace", I call "sub-text". What some call "low-key", I call "brilliantly humble". But, after all, this is just my "opinion", just my one vote - which universally is what?