Shot on the islands of Iran's Lake Urmia, an area known for its salt formations Rasoulof's mythological, folkloric allegory is as mesmeric to the eye as it is to your soul. A film that people certainly love to look at as an allegorical allusion to the current socio-political state of Iran (specifically near the end of the aughts and into the teens), is much more, thanks to the intentional ambiguity of Rasoulof who keeps his symbolism obscure enough to avoid pretentious critics like me, as well as Iranian censors, but never obscure enough to ruin the film. Rasoulof and cinematographer Ebrahim Ghafouri's humanistic eye and poignantly subtle plot deftly avoid "artsy" vagueness as well as the staid burden that a "political" film can bring, thus effortlessly bringing about a film that touches something universal, while staying complex in its folk-riddles, simple in its sorrowful tales of the variations of the human condition, and cinematographically awe-inspiring in Ghafouri's use of the natural landscape to create a world only half-rooted in reality. The ethereal sense the film is given by the landscape: the mist, the water, the reflections, the dull white salty islands which all blur the line between foreground and sky, eliminating the horizon creating a duality of possible existences is essential to Rasoulof's myth creation. A result that is reminiscent of Theo Angelopoulos. The film centers around solemn, professional Rahmat (played excellently by Hasan Pourshirazi) who rows his skid from archaic community to community, collecting the tears of the sorrowful, who are shedding their tears for one reason or another, calmly bearing witness to different rituals, practices, superstitions and tales of the lake's unexplainable rise in salinity. One of the central ambiguities is why Rahmat collects the tears—no one seems to know. His first stop is an island where a young attractive girl has died. It is implied that she was murdered. It is remarked by one of the men that she moved her body in such a way, too beautiful to live among them any longer. Rahmat collects the tears and is asked to take the body of the girl and dump her into the depths of the lake, because her beauty and sexuality is so strong that they are frightened that the male members of the community will dig her body up and violate her. Rahmat agrees and after rowing far enough away from the island curiosity gets the better of him and he wants to see how beautiful the girl really is, but as he uncovers the shroud he finds a teenage boy, Nassim (Younes Ghazali) that is a very much alive and just as frightened as Rahmat. Nassim begs to come along with Rahmat relating to Rahmat that he only wants to find his long lost father. Rahmat relents vehemently, until Nassim threatens to tell the islanders that Rahmat wanted to steal a peak at the dead girl. Rahmat agrees only if Nassim pretends to be his deaf-mute son, so as not to make the other community of islanders distrust Rahmat who has been collecting tears of the sorrowful for thirty years. In one village a dwarf Khojatesh (Omid Zare), is reluctantly weighed down with glass jars filled with the townspeople's woes and secrets. The legend is that the jars must be delivered to the fairy at the bottom of a well just before sunrise, but when the townspeople in full chant realize that Khojatesh will not make it back in time they cut his rope and drop him to his death. It is really at this point where one becomes exceptionally impressed with Rasoulof and the way he depicts these people, not with vitriol and condescension, but with an objective humanitarian eye, which is refreshing and the only way that the film can succeed in the ways that it does. On another island a young virgin is made a "bride of the sea" and is ritualistically sacrificed to the ocean. She cries and screams, begging Rahmat to help, but he cannot interfere, but Nassim, tired of standing by tries to save the young girl to no avail. He is caught and nearly stoned to death; it is only through Rahmat finally becoming active in the events around him that saves Nassim from immediate death. The ending, which will not be spoiled, is as mystifying as the beginning, while Ghafouri, through emotionally expressive close-ups or long shots of Rahmat's boat slowly rowing across the mysterious waters like some odd version of the River Styx, or of mourners discernibly dotting the white salted islands maintains the beauty and ghostliness in every composition up until the credits roll, all on a limited budget and sparse palette, never failing to aid in the mythological language Rasoulof has so meticulously but naturally created amongst the misty waters connecting all the peoples of the salt.