With echoes of real-life political events, from the Arab spring and beyond, this gripping and inventive parable of power and revenge shows again Makhmalbaf’s skill of combining a spirit of childlike play with a disquieting adult atmosphere of political corruption and brutality.

Great Iranian director Mohsen Makhmalbaf’s (Gabbeh, Kandahar) ancient morality tale about a fallen autocrat and his innocent grandson forced to flee murderous revolutionaries hell bent on vengeance is a provocative and disquieting parable about political dictatorships and the cycle of violence they breed.In an unnamed country (but reminiscent of many recent despotic nations) the president (Misha Gomiashvili) interrupts his work signing execution warrants against his own people to spend some time playing a game with his young grandson (Dachi Orvelashvili).

To demonstrate the power he wields over his nation, he playfully orders the lights of the city to be turned off, plunging his people into darkness. But the game turns sour when the lights fail to come back on again and he inadvertently sparks the fuse of rebellion and civil unrest. Forced to flee with his grandson in the aftermath through the country he once ruled, the president attempts to shield him from danger with elaborate games of pretense that can’t disguise the harsh consequences of his regime.

---