Babak Payami - Secret Ballot AKA Raye makhfi (2001)

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[User Rating:6.6/10]

Plot summary:
A soldier stationed on a deserted beach wakes up and discovers that it's not going to be an ordinary day: there are the elections, but nobody seems to know anything about them. Just as an electoral urn is being parachuted from the sky, a young woman disembarks on the beach. To the soldier's bafflement, it turns out that she is in charge of the mobile electoral seat and voting on the islands; therefore the soldier is obliged to obey her orders and escort her with his rifle and army jeep across the desert, where the woman obstinately intends to collect the votes. During the day, stressed by a series of absurd events, the two learn to get to know each other. At sunset, when the young woman leaves, the man realizes that the secret vote contained much more than he had ever imagined.

Review: (The New Yorker)
The Iranian director Babak Payami's gentle road movie about a lonely soldier (Cyrus Abidi) and a female election official (Nassim Abdi) whom he's ordered to escort while she collects ballots, has the offbeat, intimate texture of a well-worn traveller's tale. As they canvas the small Iranian island of Kish, meeting its somewhat eccentric citizens, they challenge each other's beliefs-political and social-with the playful absurdity of an opposites-attract comedy. The film succeeds in delivering its message of tolerance and patience without resorting to long-winded speeches-it glides on its humorous charm.