Asghar Farhadi's sophomore feature, Beautiful City (Shahr-e ziba), which was given a limited theatrical release in the U.S. back in 2004, has been digitally restored and is available to stream, which makes this an excellent time to revisit it. While not as powerful as some of his later films, including A Separation (2011), The Past (2013), and A Hero (2021), Beautiful City is one of the great Iranian director's formative works, a probing drama that hits on all of Farhadi's favorite themes, particularly the seemingly irreconcilable conflict among flawed characters who have arguably equal claims to truth or ... Read More