In Majid Majidi's film Bârân, Latif, an Iranian youth working on a Tehran construction site, embarks on a mission to save Bârân and her family from destitution. Bârân's family are Afghan refugees, and Bârân has no work permit. She deceives the builders and laborers by impersonating a boy and calling herself Rahmat. After struggling with the heavy work, she is given Latif's lighter job, preparing the food and tea. Latif begins to mistreat Bârân, until he accidentally stumbles across her secret. This has a profound effect on him and he dedicates himself to improving her situation, especially after she is forced to leave her job.

The film is a contemporary version of a number of traditional literary plots which share a similarity of form. There are elements in the different story structures that overlap and which I refer to as “chameleon” elements, because they have the ability to change appearance while retaining their form. However, Majidi has created a film that incorporates new elements, themes, and ideas and that required him to appropriate the original plots in unprecedented ways. He also uses the chameleon elements to reposition meaning, i.e., from a didactic allegory based on metaphor to a nonrealist allegory. In this paper I will discuss how the film moves beyond traditional allegorical and commonplace storylines by concealing the emphasis in meaning within the language of the film. Instead of looking beyond the film for meaning, or trying to uncover it from behind the story, Majidi directs us to concentrate on the particulars associated with contemporary issues and themes and the enhanced place of liminality as we engage with the film.

I will first explore the plot by drawing comparisons between it and four traditional plot structures and then move on to analyze it critically, using radical typology, to disclose the new directions the film takes. Second, I will address the importance of the opening scene and its relation to other parts of the film and describe how it informs us of the major themes in the plot. Third, it is important to explain the significance of the settings Majidi chooses for the events and the relevance these have to his plot.