Rent Frontier Blues (2009)

Borderlands - Frontier Blues review by CH

This gently comic film takes its time to link one small tableau with the next scenario,, overlayed with what the French might describe as ennui or lassitude and Turks might refer to huzun (world weary acceptance of fate in all its tedium and banality). There were so many interwoven comic moments, the simple man child with his beloved nameless pet donkey, a boutique owning uncle trying to bring chic fashion to the menfolk of the town (with a single improbably busty female display mannequin and a range of clothes that seemingly fit no-one.) A grumpy Turkmen musician travels around with a photographer searching for that ideal location to create a tourist brochure and a lovelorn chicken factory worker makes a final last ditch attempt to court the object of his desire. I loved this Iranian film of closely observed tristesse and mal de coeur of daily life in the flat Borderlands.