Dancing in the Dust is a 2003 Iranian drama film directed by Asghar Farhadi and starring Faramarz Gharibian and Yousef Khodaparast. It’s a solid, but flawed debut.

Nazar is forced to divorce his wife due to social pressures and faces difficulties to pay back his loan. His life changes when he escapes to the desert and meets a taciturn man. This was the directorial debut of Asghar Farhadi and one that showed a lot of potential, but as usual for these debuts, the movie ended up being among the weakest in his career.

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There is so much of his directorial style evident here in the very first film. It is a social drama and he will become one of the greatest 21^st century directors of such issue pictures. Also, the movie presents one issue and scenario and then goes on to wring the most out of it in the typical Farhadi fashion that exemplifies his trademark filmmaking style.

My main problem with this movie is the protagonist. I simply found him to be very unlikable. Yousef Khodaparast is only serviceable in the role that was simply unfortunate as the man was so annoying, especially in the middle act where he would repeatedly talk and bore both his companion in the desert and us the audience.

His companion is a much more interesting character and the two share an intriguing relationship, but more could have been done both with the old man and the love interest that was discarded in the second half. The acting is fine, but the characterization here left a lot to be desired.

Dancing in the Dust also doesn’t deeply deal with its issues. Instead, it only minimally addresses them, which was insufficient for this type of social drama. What I did like, though, is the cinematography, which was particularly advanced for Farhadi’s first movie. His directing is fine, the imagery in the desert was superb and the movie made the most out of its setting for sure. I just wish that the story was more interesting, but for the first movie of his, it’s better than expected.

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Dancing in the Dust was the directorial debut of Asghar Farhadi, and as such it showed a lot of his signature directorial style from the very beginning. It’s a social drama that benefits from strong acting, directing and cinematography. However, the repetitive nature of its second act, a serviceable storyline and a very unlikable protagonist held this movie back at the end of the day.

My Rating – 3.5