![\"Radio](\"https:\/\/wp-media.patheos.com\/blogs\/sites\/81\/2017\/06\/Radio-Dreams.jpg\")
<\/a>\nThe plot of Radio Dreams is simple enough. A Farsi language radio station in San Francisco has made a booking coup, well beyond its normal range. They\u2019re bringing the heavy metal band Metallica to jam with Kabul Dreams, an Afghani rock band.<\/p>\n
The story turns on that single day as the hours extend on and Metallica does not show up.<\/p>\n
It captures perfectly an immigrant community filled with hopes and constraints, and perhaps living more into the constraints.<\/p>\n
But, Radio Dreams is also a comedy, if of the human comedy variety. It is a gentle film played out against the back drop of a pretty harsh world.<\/p>\n
It portrays a wonderful cast of characters, giving most of them just enough time for us to feel genuine affection.\u00a0It took me a little while to realize that Hamid Royani, the station\u2019s director of programming is the protagonist, not the villain.<\/p>\n
Royani is portrayed by Mohsen Namjoo,<\/a> who has been called the \u201cIranian Bob Dylan,\u201d and according to the New York Times<\/em>, is \u201cthe most controversial, and certainly the most daring, figure in Persian music today.\u201d He\u2019s also a commanding film presence, not just because of his astonishing mane of grizzing grey hair. In a movie where everyone has a face, and I mean a face Namjoo\u2019s Royani\u2019s is as perfect and haunting as can be imagined.<\/p>\n The broadcast day begins with a reading of a dark poem by the Salvadoran poet Roque Dalton. As director of programming, Royani, who had been a renowned novelist in Iran, but now struggles on his much, much smaller stage, is determined that high culture drive the station and its programming.<\/p>\n Against this is the station owner\u2019s daughter Maral, played to a delicious turn by Boshra Dastounezhad, who is determined the station will turn a profit, and that means advertising. All the adds are, of course, terribly cheesy. And so Royani and Moral are at war with each other.<\/p>\n The film also features Sullyman Qardash, Raby Adib, and Siddique Ahmed, as the real-life Afghani hard rock trio Kabul Dreams<\/a>, as well as a wonderful last reel visit from Metallica\u2019s Lars Ulrich.<\/p>\n Radio Dreams is writer director Babak Jalali\u2019s second film. (The script here is co-written with Aida Ahadiany) His first film Frontier Blues, which takes place on the Iran-Turkmenistan border was a critical success. This second film was shot during production delays, apparently, of another film, Land, about a Lakota Sioux family. I think those constraints bleed into the film, in very successful ways.<\/p>\n Radio Dreams is the winner of numerous awards and is a New York Times Critic\u2019s Pick.<\/p>\n Filmed in Farsi, with English subtitles, on location in San Francisco and the East Bay.<\/p>\n It runs one hour and thirty-three minutes.<\/p>\n Radio Dreams is going to be a little hard to find. But, it is worth going out of your way to see it. A lovely, lovely film.<\/p>\n