The Baby
2014 · 15m · Iran
Directed by Ali Asgari
Genres: drama
Tones: contemplative, melancholic, tender
Narges and her friend have only a few hours to find someone willing to look after her baby for a few days.
Picked by Zoe
The scouts
A premise that sounds like a social-realist drama checklist—immigrant woman, childcare crisis, ticking clock—but *The Baby* subverts the expected sermon by refusing easy answers or redemptive arcs; it sits in the discomfort instead.
Asgari's restraint recalls the observational cinema of the Dardenne brothers, where formal rigor and emotional honesty become inseparable—the contemplative pacing and tender framing suggest a filmmaker working deliberately within a lineage of humanist cinema.
The film's power hinges on a single recurring decision: the choice to hold on Narges' face in moments of quiet defeat rather than cut away to plot momentum, transforming a 15-minute deadline into an excavation of what it costs to ask for help.
Reviews
Tradition, modernité, intimité, tabou, féminité, simplicité, pudeur et final magnifique sont au cœur de ce film nocturne, fort et puissant, réussissant comme tous les courts d'Asgari à s'approprier au mieux un cadre et une durée bien déterminés (15 minutes) et à confronter avec intelligence regard social et destin individuel.