Baran is a 2001 Iranian film directed by Majid Majidi. The movie is set at the Turn of the Millennium, when during the Taliban years a large number of Afghan refugees live on the outskirts of Tehran, most of them as unregistered workers.
The protagonist is Lateef, a 17-years-old lazy tea boy for a building construction site where most of the workers are unregistered Afghans. One day one of them, Najaf, falls from the building and breaks his leg, which makes him unable to work. The next day, Soltan, another Afghan worker, brings in Najaf's son Rahmat, who is around 14 years old, to replace his father. Memar, the site foreman, soon realizes that Rahmat is too weak to work in a construction site, and switches jobs between Rahmat and Lateef, who is now old enough to work as a mason. Lateef picks in on Rahmat mistreating him at every occasion. One day, by looking through the door of the storage room where Rahmat prepares the dishes, he is totally shocked to discover that Rahmat is a girl, Baran. Lateef sees Rahmat/Baran combing her long hair (which she usually keeps well-hidden under an hat), becomes instantly smitten with her and acts as her secret champion, in an increasingly desperate quest to keep her out of trouble.
The film was fairly well-received in Iran and outside, showing also the harsh conditions endured by Afghan refugees, who despite getting in and out Iran from the Soviet Invasion of Afghanistan are never granted much rights in Iran or elsewhere.
Baran displays the following tropes:
- Bilingual Bonus: Since the Afghans also speak Farsi, the ethnic Azeris speak their Azeri dialect leading the Afghans to be frustrated with them.
- Bittersweet Ending: Lateef manages to see Baran again, who is implied to love him back, and gives some money to help her family. But to do so, he sold his ID card, the last valuable thing he owned, and Baran leaves for Afghanistan, meaning that they'll never see each other again.
- The Bully: Lateef towards Rahmat, who is the youngest guy after him, and has "stolen" his comfortable job as tea boy.
- Coming of Age Story: The entire story is a growin-up arc for Lateef, who becomes from a lazy and bratty boy to a humble and helpful young man.
- Did Not Get the Girl: Not for a lack of feelings, but because Baran goes back to Afghanistan with her family, and staying in Iran alone was probably not an option.
- The Dulcinea Effect: Seeing Baran in female clothing the first time is enough for Lateef to be fall hard and become her unlikely champion.
- Feminine Women Can Cook: Subverted. Not a single man in the site wonders why this small boy too weak for carrying a load is so skilled in housework stuff like cooking, cleaning or preparing tea.
- Graceful in Their Element: Rahmat/Baran is fairly useless in a construction site, but given the job as a tea boy she is far better at it than Lateef, since it's what she usually does at home with little effort.
- Green-Eyed Monster: lateef hates Rahmat/Baran at first, because she replaced him as the tea boy because she's younger and weaker.
- Jerk with a Heart of Gold:
- Memar, despite running a construction site with Afghan cheap labour, is actually quite a good person if not grumpy. He doesn't fire Najaf for being injured, takes his son (actually a daughter) instead of him, ang gives money to his family for helping them with the ordeal.
- Lateef himself grows to be one as he stops being a brat and helps Baran and her family.
- The Klutz: Rahmat/Baran is this when working at the site, doing more harm than good. It's justified since she's actually a girl, and not suited at all to carry heavy burdens. Fortunately for her, she's more helpful in caring roles such as preparing tea and meals.
- Love at First Sight: Well, the first real sight. Lateef is awestruck by The Reveal of "Rahmat" being a girl, watching her combing her long dark hair in secret.
- Promotion to Parent: Baran is the eldest daughter of an handful of siblings and a mother is never shown around. She does app the house chores herself, and pretty much raises the rest of her siblings.
- Secret-Keeper: Soltan is the only one who knows Baran's gender.
- Secret Secret-Keeper: Lateef eventually finds out Rahmat/Baran's gender but never tells anyone. At some point Baran figures out he knows her secret.
- The Speechless: Rahmat/Baran never speaks. Language barrier was never a reason to start (Afghans speak a variant of Farsi that is mutually intellegible with Iranian Farsi, as shown with other Afghan characters) but her behaviour could be explained with two reasons: a) a feminine voice would instantly give away her cover; b) she's shy and lives in a culture where every contact of an unmarried woman with other men is seen as inappropriate, so she tries to stick to what she's taught as much as she can.
- Sweet Polly Oliver: Baran's father gets injured and cannot work for months. As the eldest daughter she's the only one who can provide for the family, so goes working to the construction site dressed as a boy.
- Wham Shot: The Reveal of "Rahmat"'s gender happens with a single shot of her removing her turban, revealing long dark hair.
