Iron Island

Director Mohammad Rasoulof has fashioned the ultimate metaphor for a society adrift from its culture.

Mohammad Rasoulof's heartfelt and darkly comic second feature proves beyond any doubt that Iranian film is still alive and well, despite waning Western interest in one of the world's richest contemporary cinemas.

A thrilling example of the cunning political allegory woven into vivid concretism that invigorates contemporary Iranian cinema, Mohammad Rasoulof's Iron Island takes as its monumental central image a sinking ship, symbol of decaying autocracy and the faint hope of liberation.

A potent social allegory told with humor and mystery.

Iron Island is at its most compelling early, as Rasoulof explores his human-scaled ant farm, detailing how people make lives for themselves in cramped quarters, using cardboard partitions and jerry-rigged appliances.

Less consumed by behavioral details than many of his filmmaking compatriots, Mr. Rasoulof makes bold use of symbolic imagery - a satellite television is confiscated and tossed overboard - suggesting that utopias inevitably come at the price of isolation and authoritarianism.

Depending on one's mood, the movie might seem boldly simplified and poetic--or boringly simpleminded and prosaic.