An engaging, charming and well made film. I felt that as an ignorant foreigner it allowed me a momentary intimate window on to the landscape, characters and feel of the Turkmen and Iranian cultures. The director captures a wealth of images and humour in this alien landscape. Wonderful and enjoyable.

What is so wonderful about Frontier Blues, and also Babak Jalali's previous short, "Heydar: An Afghan in Tehran", is that he is showing us a view of Iran that most of us here have never been exposed to— a perspective free of politics and chaos in a part of Iran that most of us could only see in photo books. And while those photographs reveal the beauty and majesty of northern Iran, they cannot reveal the humanity that Babak is exploring in his film. There are no photos that could capture that monotony of every day life for Alam who works on a chicken farm but who is desperately in love with a girl he has never spoken to. Or Hassan, the village idiot, who's best friend is his donkey and his uncle Kazem who owns a small clothing store where nothing quite fits any one who comes in. And the minstrel who tells the audience of his wife, stolen from him by a man in a green Mercedes years ago.The people that inhabit Frontier Blues are settled but lost. They long for something better or long for what they could have had, but they continue to live and work every day. The majestic beauty of northern Iran is merely a backdrop, one that doesn't impress them anymore the way they do outsiders. They are stoic and laconic men, maybe more so than if they were not on camera, but in some ways, that is the point. Jalali is looking deeply into them, which often requires a bit of silence and focus, but what he finds is truly beautifully strange.

I recently saw this film at the Edinburgh Film Festival. What a brilliant first feature!The story follows the lives of different men living in a small town in northern Iran. The stories are simple and beautiful, about love and lose, men desperately trying to make a connection and to find meaning in their monotonous everyday existence. I really loved the pacing of the film. It takes its time. It achieves humor and pathos without trying. It is the kind of film that only comes around once in a while, the kind of film that is getting harder and harder to make or released. I recommend this gem to anyone who loves the cinema of Kaurismäki or Kiarostami. Babak Jalali is certainly a great new director to watch!

I saw this film at two different festivals and each time I left thinking that Iranian cinema is in safe hands! Although perhaps I shouldn't even limit this film in to a sub category such as Iranian cinema because this film does not resemble much of what I've seen of Iranian cinema. But I still feel that after a disappointing few years, directors like Babak Jalali could well be about to give films from that region a much needed lift. Frontier Blues takes place in a remote part of Northern Iran where Turkmen and Persians live side by side. This film is about the lives lived on that region by a group of men waiting to go places. It's a very atmospheric and confident piece of work and does not rely on any cinematic conventions to tell it's tales. Highly recommended and I hope to be able to see it again.