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Director's Statement
The book’s central idea is the myth of “Syngue Sabour”, a ‘patience stone’ on which you can shed your misfortunes, your complaints, your secrets until it’s so full it bursts. In this story, the stone is the husband, a warrior paralysed by a bullet in the neck. To bring him back to life, the woman has to pray for him during 99 days. But that prayer soon turns into confession. She whispers in his ears all the things she has kept locked inside for so many years. The first work to be made on the adaptation was to deconstruct the Romanesque narrative to reach a purely cinematographic dramaturgy. To get this effect, the narrative point of view was changed. Thus, the camera follows the woman out of the house, into the streets of Kabul, into the heart of the war. Outside, the camera is mobile, light, capturing situations on the spur of the moment. On the contrary, the interior scenes where sensuality, intimacy, phantasms, regrets, and remorse prevail, the camera focuses on characters’ feelings. Gracious and sensual, the camera slides through the woman’s intimate world, like a close friend. The film is also structured around flashback sequences making the narrative non-linear. However, the woman’s memories are not depicted by systematic and arbitrary flashbacks. It is always the present elements that bring the viewer back into the past. This is how the characters in the book – which only exist in the story told by the woman – come to life.