Mohammad Haghighat: With regards to your method of working, at which stage did you discover its form?
Mohsen Makhmalbaf: This film is like a travel guide. Its form came to me whilst writing the screenplay and evolved whilst filming. For example, the wedding scene was made up on the spot. When you look at these women wrapped in their burkas, there is an esthetic harmony on the outside, but on the inside, under every burka, there is suffocation. It’s a strange contradiction. As they do not have the right to show their physical beauty they use the beauty of their clothing.
At times the sound and even the directing, towards the end of the film, remind us of certain works by Pasolini …
Those murmured songs, which to us seem strange songs for a wedding ceremony.
I had never before heard such sad songs to celebrate a marriage.
[...]
