The Patience Stone is a drama from French-Afghan director Atiq Rahimi and based on his own prizewinning novel and adapted by French screenwriting legend Jean-Claude Carriere.
It is described by The List as follows: “In an unnamed town in what could be Afghanistan, a young woman tends to her injured husband. A religious war is being fought around them, and while battling alongside his Muslim brothers the husband has taken a stray bullet in the neck. Now he is breathing and not much else; he lies staring into space, not moving and completely unresponsive. His silence prompts the woman to speak – 'You’re compelling me to talk', she says – and as the surrounding violence escalates she begins to tell him all the thoughts, resentments and deep secrets that he has never listened to during their marriage.
This is a striking and provocative film, and essential to its success is Iranian actress Golshifteh Farahani, giving a deeply layered performance as the woman. She is both liberated and falling apart, at once a victim and fiercely in control, and Farahani ensures her actions are never predictable but always believable. Her expression in the film’s final enigmatic frame is one of the best parting shots in cinema this year.”