The Patience Stone, Ciné Lumière

The Patience Stone is an absorbing, melancholy and yet bizarrely uplifting story of a woman coming to terms with her abusive past. You might not have heard of the director Atiq Rahimi yet, but you soon will- he is a truly astonishing emerging talent. A renaissance man, known equally for his writing and directing, this film is an adaptation of Rahimi’s own novel, which won the prestigious prix Goncourt in 2008. 

This adaptation has been written alongside academy award winning Jean-Claude Carrière, who was a frequent collaborator of avant-garde filmmaker Luis Buñuel in the 60s and 70s.  Together they have successfully wrestled this story of female empowerment onto the big screen.  Rahimi’s attention to detail, alongside Carrière’s characteristic touch of surrealism, makes this film un-missable. 

The film remains true to the book. It stays close to the un-named lead woman as she slowly releases her psychological burdens onto her now vegetative husband, who was recently shot. Played by the superb Iranian actress Golshifteh Farahani (who you may have seen in Asghar Farhadi’s critically acclaimed About Elly), every touch of euphoria, or cry of despair becomes relatable. 

The film is not always a comfortable watch, and the un-named Middle Eastern country in which it is set, implicitly Afghanistan, is one of mundane brutality- death is a constant, and at times friendly, presence. But despite the difficult nature of the subject matter, the intimacy one feels with the lead role is immediate and constant. 

The Patience Stone rewards the viewer with moments of joy, and will absorb you into its photographic aesthetic (choreographed by the talented Thierry Arbogast). More than that, it will leave you with questions that linger after the lights in the cinema have been switched back on. 

Tickets: £10 (£8 concessions)

Address & Map:  17 Queensberry Pl, London SW7 2DT  

Nearest Tube: South Kensington