Mardan’s opening shot is as intense as they come: a face in close-up, its haunted eyes staring into the lens so as to not meet the glare of some awful monster on the other side of the camera. But there are no monsters in in this commendably solid feature from Batin Ghobadi – just painful memories. And that gaze won’t leave us for the movie’s duration.

The eyes belong to the titular character (Hossein Hasan), is a police officer based in Iraq, constantly in the throes of…
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