ALTHOUGH Iranian art cinema was modish during the 1990s, a certain amount of resistance has developed towards it over the past couple of years.

The declamatory, stilted line readings that once seemed so authentic now just sound like unnecessarily bad acting. The panoramic shots of beautiful, austere landscapes have all started to merge.

But of all the Iranian filmmakers now working, the Makhmalbaf family should be best equipped to survive this slight cooling in the reception from international audiences. For although Samira Makhmalbaf and her father Mohsen are as prone as anyone to rehash the clichés of their national cinema, both have an uncanny instinct for a newsworthy backdrop to the intimate human stories they tell.

At Five in the Afternoon is the second feature-length film by the Makhmalbaf Film House (father Mohsen and offspring) to be set in Afghanistan. The first, Kandahar by Mohsen himself, was finished before September 11 but gained a new significance on release.

At Five in the Afternoon, Samira Makhmalbaf’s film, comes when Afghanistan is being sidelined, overshadowed as a news story by Iraq. Makhmalbaf sets out to show that just because a war was won, it doesn’t mean that the country’s problems have been solved.

While it’s interesting to see images of Afghanistan not filtered through a television news desk, that’s not to say Makhmalbaf doesn’t have her own agenda. But as a young Muslim woman with an impressively robust sense of creative entitlement, her view of post-Taleban society is more valid than most.

Taking a young woman her own age as her central character, and punctuating the film with a series of striking images, Makhmalbaf explores the dichotomies at the heart of Afghanistan. Noqreh (a charismatic performance from the non-professional Agheleh Rezaie) is determined to enjoy the new freedoms available to her since the ousting of the regime. She has enrolled in a girls’ school, but has to conceal the fact from her strict father. She harbours the ambition of becoming the first female president of Afghanistan but has to smuggle an illicit but much-cherished pair of high-heeled shoes under her burka until her father is out of sight. The contrast between Noqreh’s ambition and the opportunities available to women like her is stark.

And while initially we almost believe that Noqreh could become a stateswoman, her options are gradually worn down by the immovable forces of tradition and by the exhausting process of survival. While Makhmalbaf allows moments of off-beat humour, post-Taleban Afghanistan is not a place for optimism, it seems.

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