AllMovie

Samira Makhmalbaf's third film continues in the powerful, deeply humanist tradition of her first two films, The Apple and Blackboards. Like Blackboards, At Five in the Afternoon also won her the jury prize at the 2003 Cannes Film Festival. Ostensibly about a woman's dream of becoming president of Afghanistan, the film addresses that nation's painful recovery from Taliban rule by focusing the dynamics of one family struggling to survive in a refugee camp. While Noqreh (Agheleh Rezaie) secretly attends a school for women, her elderly father (Abdolgani Yousefrazi) clings stubbornly to the Taliban's strict rules about women's behavior. Makhmalbaf avoids turning her film into a dry political allegory by giving emotional depth and compassion even to this essentially unpleasant character, a man so trapped in his beliefs that he can only confess his troubles to his horse. The clash of ideals and generations against the backdrop of teeming refugee camps in a ruined former parliament building and a crashed airplane becomes even more tragic when Noqreh, her father, and sister-in-law (Marzieh Amiri) make a pilgrimage across the desert in search of a better life. Their journey, which occupies most of the second half of the film, has an emotional impact that is almost unbearably powerful. As their struggle for survival becomes more and more desperate, their humanity comes more sharply into focus. This film proves that Makhmalbaf, though only 23, is a master.